Petitions vs cybercrime law continue to flood SC

MANILA, Philippines - Protests against RA 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act continues to mount at the Supreme Court (SC) after a fifth group yesterday filed another petition seeking to stop implementation of questioned provisions in the new law.

A group of journalists, bloggers and lawyers led by UP law professor Harry Roque Jr. argued that five provisions of the law violate not only constitutional rights of citizens in cyberspace but also run counter to the contractual obligation of the government to the United Nations.

They slammed the government for criminalizing libel on the Internet when the United Nations had already pointed out that libel under the Revised Penal Code was “incompatible” with the Filipino’s freedom of expression.

Petitioners cited the findings of UN Human Rights Committee on the case of radio broadcaster Alexander Adonis, who sought relief from the UN after having been found guilty on the libel charge slapped by former House speaker Prospero Nograles and imprisoned for two years.

Just like the earlier petitioners, the group asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) enjoining concerned government agencies from implementing sections 4 (c) [4], 5, 6, 7 and 19, which define and penalize cybercrimes including libel.

Roque was joined by Adonis, lawyers Romel Bagares and Gilber Andres, newspaper columnist Ellen Tordesillas and investigative writer Ma. Gisela Ordenes-Cascolan in filing the petition.

All petitioners keep online blogs.

They named Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Philippine National Police (PNP) and Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO)-Department of Science and Technology (DOST) as respondents.

It was the fifth petition filed before the SC seeking to stop and annul certain provisions of the cybercrime law.

The first three were filed earlier this week by businessman Louis Biraogo, a group of journalists belonging to Alab ng Mamahayag (ALAM), a group of bloggers and Internet law experts led by Jose Jesus Disini Jr. of the Internet and society program of UP College of Law, and Sen. Teofisto Guingona III.

The petitions will be consolidated by the high court and tackled in the next full-court session of justices on Tuesday next week.

Dissecting the penal provision

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano vowed to push for amendments of the Cybercrime Act once Congress resumes session on Oct. 8.

“A law can be totally unwise. I don’t want to use the word stupid. A law can be stupid yet legal. A law can also be very good but illegal or unconstitutional. What the court can do is assert the constitutionality, but it cannot undo a law or think it is valid. Legislation is the solution here,” Cayetano said, adding that his legal staff are studying how to remove the penal provisions, as well as libel, in the Cybercrime Act.

He said he is supportive of decriminalizing libel and there could be need to amend the new cyber law in the process.

Cayetano lamented that the inclusion of a libel clause in the Cybercrime Act went unnoticed during the deliberations of the measure in the plenary.

“To be fair to the author, to Sen. (Edgardo) Angara and the others, these reactions weren’t all brought up, at least not this passionately when it was being discussed,” he said.

As this developed, the DOST will hold a multi-sectoral dialogue to address human rights and privacy concerns on the new law.

Under the RA 10175, the ICTO is the designated chair of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, the main body in charge of inter-agency coordination, monitoring, policy formulation and enforcement of the Cybercrime Prevention Act as well as the development of a national cyber security plan.

The ICTO is also the lead agency mandated to formulate the bill’s IRR, along with the DOJ and the DILG.

“We now need to ensure that the IRR will help balance perceived shortcomings while having an implementation framework that is both legally grounded and technically sound,” Louis Casambre, executive director of the DOST’s ICTO, said.

Casambre said the multi-sectoral consultations aim to ensure that “a balance is struck between protecting individual rights, freedom of expression, and national security in the rules.”

Casambre also called on hackers to stop defacing government websites in protesting the controversial provisions of the law. – With Helen Flores, Perseus Echeminada, Christina Mendez