“Bullying is an attitude hard to control but it can be stopped by discipline.”
Republic Act 10175 also known as the cybercrime prevention act of 2012 is oppressive and dangerous. It demonizes the computer user and extends its tentacles to a computer user’s freedom of expression and speech. In an age when criminalization of libel is the trend, this law makes a fatal step back, towards the volt of archaic policies that cannot be made to apply to the modern man operating on in a modern world.
The Act is divided into 31 sections split. A chapter criminalizes several types of offenses, including illegal axis (hacking), data interference, device misuse cyber squatting, computer prod, content related offenses such as cybersex, spam, and other offenses. The law also reaffirms existing laws against child pornography, an offense under Republic Act 9779 also known as the Anti-child Pornography Act of 2009 and libel, an offense under section 355 of the revise penal code of the Philippines.
The provisions on libel in the cybercrime prevention act are dangerous expressions of our archaic policies. As a result, the computer user will now live in fear knowing that there fair but critical comment, will publish online and might expose them to a charge of libel.
For a state truly gag a citizen, it is not necessary that we convict for expressing their thought. It is enough that we scare them from speaking up. We feel that a democratic government flour recess when its citizens are not less to cower in the sidelines because of fear, afraid to speak, and later, afraid to even think against its own government.
Surely this is not a vision of a free and democratic environment. These provisions on cyber-libel will just curtail a fundamental principle of good governance. We want empowered citizens, not scared and passive one.
By: Honey Pearl Reyes
