Cybercrime Law officially recorded as Republic Act No. 1017. It is a law in the Philippines approved last September 12 2012, it aims to address legal issues concerning online interactions. Cybersquating, cybersex, child pornography, identity theft, illegal access to data and libel are the cybercrime offenses in the bill.
The Philippines Supreme Curt suspends implementation of the country’s anti-cybercrime law while it decides whether certain provision violate civil liberties. The secretary of Department of Justice Leila de Lima stated that the court issued a temporary restraining order topping the government from enforcing the law signed by the Philippines President Benigno Aquino III. The law took effect however there has been no report of anyone being charged with violating it.
The court suspends the law for 120 days and scheduled oral arguments for January 15. It establish the government to acknowledge within 10 days to 15 petitions seeking to declare the law unconstitutional.
A new cybercrime law in the Philippines that could see people jailed for 12 years for posting defamatory comments on Twitter and Facebook is generating outrage among right group and netizens. The stated goal of the wide ranging law is tackle a multiplicity of online crimes like hacking, pornography, identity theft and spamming, following police complaints that they lacked the legal tools to combat them. But, the act also includes a provision that puts the country’s criminal libel law into force in cyberspace, yet with far tougher penalties for internet defamation than in traditional print media.
“People who will post a libelous comment online in Facebook, Twitter or anywhere, he/she will face a maximum prison sentence of 12 years and a fine of one million pesos. A newspaper editors and other trained professionals working in traditional media face prison terms of just four years and fines of 6,000 pesos for defamation.”
From the personal user accounts on social media and listen in on voice/video applications like Skype the Cybercrime Act also allows authorities to collect data without a warrant.
Noemi Dado a prominent Manila blogger who edits a citizen media site called Blog Watch stated that the unwary teenagers retweeting or reposting libelous material could find themselves facing the full force of the law. Dado also said that not everyone is an expert on what constitutes libel, imagine a mother like teenagers and kids who love to rant and it really hits their freedoms.
REFERENCE:
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=857483&publicationSubCategoryId=63
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/09/29/12/outrage-over-philippine-cybercrime-law
