Just today, the Supreme Court (SC) officially announced their stand regarding the controversial Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 or the Republic Act No. 10175. Despite of the opposition from various sectors, the announcement pushed through early this afternoon where SC approved some of the provisions of the Cybercrime Law including the online libel. With the vote of 12-1-2 the justices ruled the internet libel constitutional with the condition that internet libel is constitutional when it comes to the original author of the material but it cannot be enforced to those who receive and react to the post. This was the explanation of the High Court’s Information Chief Theodore Te.
Meanwhile, other provisions approved by SC were illegal access, illegal interception, data interference, system interference, misuse of devices, cyber squatting, computer-related fraud, computer-related identity theft, and cybersex. All cases correspond with penalization in accordance to the law.
On the other side, SC ruled with 11-2-2 votes to declare Section 4 (c) (3) penalizing unsolicited commercial communication to be unconstitutional.
Since September 2012 where the said act was signed by President Benigno Aquino III there were 15 petitions have been filed to questioning the legality of the law that also lead to120 days restraining order its implementation.
With the ruling of the SC on the legality of several provisions in the Cybercrime Law where online libel is included various opposition from social media advocates and netizens were released since the oral argument started and even campaign to chance their profile photos to black as sign of protest.
In the enactment of the online libel and other provisions of Cybercrime Law may it not be used to suppress press freedom and opinions among the online journalists and netizens especially in the height of various scandals in the government including the pork barrel scam and even on transparency in government transactions. And we all know how that online libel can be used to silence citizen journalists which are the real reporters for transparencies and anomalies.
