Category: senate

cyberlibel law will “level the playing field” ?!?

before anything else, kudos cheers mabuhays to SENATOR TG GUINGONA for voting NO to the cybercrime act, the only one who dared, cared, on grounds that the libel clause is a prior restraint on freedom of expression, a constitutionally guaranteed right.

so who voted yes to the cybercrime act despite the libel clause?

LOREN LEGARDA
FRANCIS ESCUDERO 
GREGORIO HONASAN II
AQUILINO “KOKO” PIMENTEL 
PIA CAYETANO
RAMON “BONG” REVILLA JR.
JINGGOY EJERCITO-ESTRADA
PANFILO LACSON
MANUEL “LITO” LAPID
FERDINAND “BONGBONG” MARCOS
RALPH RECTO
VICENTE SOTTO III
MANNY VILLAR

so the following abstained, it would seem:

JUAN PONCE ENRILE
JOKER ARROYO
ALAN PETER CAYETANO
EDGARDO ANGARA 
FRANKLIN DRILON
MIRIAM DEFENSOR SANTIAGO
SERGIO OSMENA III 
FRANCIS “KIKO” PANGILINAN
ANTONIO “SONNY” TRILLANES

makes you wonder about these senators.

my first thought was, the ones who said yes must be anti-RH, like sotto.  but wait, where’s enrile?  and what’s RH sponsor pia doing in that list?  ah, so, maybe these are senators who have been criticized, berated, attacked online a la sotto, they know what it’s like, or maybe they haven’t and they don’t want to be and they don’t want to know what it’s like, ever, so yes, regulate blogs, facebook, twitter, news websites.

as for those who abstained, since they didn’t have it in them to say yes, good for them, then why did they not go the whole hog and vote no a la guingona?  pogi points sana.  talo rin lang kasi, wiser to stay on sotto’s good side, the old-boys-club mentality kicking in, kapit-bisig kumbaga, circle the wagons, there’s more at stake than one senator’s reputation?  there’s more at stake than one senate bill?

say ni pia cayetano sa twitter:

My review of the cybercrime bill was focused on child pornography, which falls within my area of responsibility.

a follower asked:

@piacayetano so if you say your review is only on child pornography, then all the other areas of the law you don’t bother to check? 

no response so far.  what kind of senators are these.

and no word from the palace, no explanations.  only this announcement on the president’s website, that the doj, the dilg, and the dost are working on the implementing rules and regulations of the cybercrime act.

Punishable acts under the new law include offenses against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data system, illegal access, illegal interception, data interference, system interference, and misuse of devices. Also included are computer-related offenses such as forgery, fraud, and identity theft that are rampant in the Internet.

Also punishable under the new law are content-related offenses like cybersex, and child pornography.

The law also punishes unsolicited commercial communications or cyber squatting, the acquisition of a person’s domain name for profit or destroy reputations.

ang lupit, di ba?  no time-frame, manginig tayo.  at ang weird, ni hindi nakalista ang libel.  which means what?  did they even read it?  did they even know that it contained a libel clause?

and take note, the prez and the senators are leaving it to sotto iii to defend the libel clause.  every one else is silent on the matter, esp the palace communications peeps, two of whom used to be “noted” bloggers, one of whom tweeted non-stop in memory of the declaration of martial law.

rubbing salt into the wound, sotto iii has the temerity to ask : why, what’s wrong with a libel law in cyber space? 

“I can’t see the logic,” said Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III when asked to react to media protests regarding the dangers and possible unconstitutionality of extending libel laws to new social media in the new Cybercrime Prevention Act.

“If mainstream media are prevented by law from cursing and engaging in character assassination, why should those in the social media and in the Internet be exempted from such accountability,” said Sotto, who had proposed the extension of the Act’s coverage to include libel.

“What’s so special about (mainstream journalists) that they have those prohibitions, and that they (social media bloggers) don’t?” Sotto had insisted in a recent interview.

—

The libel clause in the recently passed anti-cybercrime law is meant to “level the playing field” between the mainstream media and the social media, Sen. Vicente Sotto III said. 

he can’t see the logic in the cybercommunity’s protests.  he’s saying that he only seeks to level the playing field between social media and mainstream media, both should be covered by the same libel law, never mind that honasan had filed a bill to decriminalize libel, i guess because honasan must have changed his mind, as he voted for the cybercrime-with-libel law.

but but but it is not the playing field between mainstream and social media that’s the problem – we are co-existing, mainstream media is not complaining that social media is more free; social media, indie political bloggers in particular, are not complaining that mainstream media is profit-oriented, a capitalist enterprise.  it is what it is.  instead, mainstream and social media are feeding off each other, and that is good, for the information of the nation.

in truth, the playing field that needs to be levelled is the one between government officials and the citizens and communities whom they are pledged to serve.  lamang na lamang, llamadong llamado ang ruling class, from one admin to the next, life does not get better, only worse, for the larger population, status quo.

for our part, all that we political bloggers and commenters and tweeters and facebookers have is the internet where, as ordinary citizens mostly, we have the freedom to speak out, share our points of view, take a stand, esp on political developments that impact negatively on nation (and there are many, it doesn’t stop…), if only for the record.

indeed, it is not a level playing field, and an anti-libel law that infringes on the freedom of speech of the cyber community makes the rules even more  favorable for the already powerful ones who have sat on the RH and FOI bills, and who knows what else, divorce? for more than a decade now, manigas tayo.

on facebook there are some who say that we who are so upset by the cybercrime act should have spoken up before the bill became law, that we should have monitored closely the legislative process. ang say ko naman, but, really, there were some who spoke up, and even if more had spoken up earlier, would the senate have listened to us?  the senate has not been listening to 7 out of 10 filipinos who want the RH bill, why would they listen to the cybercommunity, na 3 out of 10 filipinos lang daw (and of that three, i bet only one is interested in politics).

ang problema sa ating elected government officials ay, they believe their own propaganda that they are god’s gift to filipinos, they know better than we do about what’s good for the nation, so na-o-offend sila na bonggang bongga when they’re called out, criticized, cyberstoned for something we think they did wrong or didn’t do right.

what if, sumagot sila nang maayos?  umamin, kapag nagkamali.  magpaliwanag, kung may malabo.  engage with the citizenry in constructive discourse.  but no.  instead of getting their acts together, instead of behaving like honorable statesmen who deserve to be in public office, instead of giving us no cause to criticize and deplore, instead of being men and facing up to public opinion for the good of nation, they slap us with an anti-cyber-libel law.

and this, from sotto pa rin, part of his justification for the libel rider, based on the senate journal of january 24, 2012.

…there are numerous abuses in technology, particularly the video and photo uploading and unnecessary write-ups and comments in social networking systems. 

unnecessary in what sense?  who is to decide about necessity?  what might seem unnecessary to sotto would not necessarily be unnecessary in the filipino’s long-term struggle for a true, informed, and working democracy.  everything being done and being said in the freewheeling ether of cyberspace today, day after day, from the inane to the cruel, from the gross to the sublime, and everything that government does and does not do, documented for cyber-eternity, has historical value and significance for the future.

i’m a writer of history, and this is an indie non-profit blog where i share historical and political notes, and call a spade a spade, in aid of nation-building, if not for my children’s generation, then for their my grandchildren’s, and yours.  don’t tell me i have to mince my words now and live in fear of sotto and his ilk.

AMEND THE ANTI-CBYERCRIME ACT!
DECRIMINALIZE LIBEL!

Amend the Anti-Cybercrime law

Editorial, The Manila Times

The Anti-Cybercrime Law may have been crafted with the best of intentions, but the final version of the bill poses nothing less than a most serious threat to our freedom of speech.

The full name of the law is the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. What it does is expand the coverage of libel.

The biggest mistake committed by the law’s authors was the last-minute insertion of a libel clause, which was not in the original version. That version received widespread support from concerned sectors who recognized that cybercrime is a growing phenomenon that must be arrested. But no one ever thought that the authors of the bill would go as far as to include online libel to the coverage of the law.

It should not be lost on anyone that the Philippines is one of the few countries in the world where libel is considered a criminal offense, and not the civil offense that it should be.

It is incredible that in a country that prides itself as having one of the freest presses in the world, anyone can still be imprisoned for writing his or her thoughts. While no one can disagree that to intentionally ruin another person’s reputation is libelous, the punishment should be commensurate to the gravity of the crime.

For the longest time, local media has been asking, begging, cajoling and demanding that Congress rewrite the country’s libel laws, and many a senator and congressman have said that they would do what was necessary. Instead, the situation has been worsened for media practitioners who are active in cyberspace via their blogs.

It is not just media that is under constant threat by the country’s archaic libel laws. Ordinary citizens who write their opinion in any media are also subject to the extreme penalties of those laws.

Look at the backlog of the country’s court cases. There is a fair percentage of one party accusing another of libel, thereby seeking to imprison that offending party. Were these cases civil suits, judgments would have been rendered quicker. Guilty parties would have to pay civil damages. Imprisoning anyone for writing any falsehood would hurt the guilty party where it hurts most—his or her pocket. But no one need spend so much as a minute in jail for a crime that causes no physical harm.

In Vietnam this week, three bloggers were jailed for “anti-state propaganda.” Is this what the country’s lawmakers want to happen here? If the law is not amended ASAP, that most sacred freedom of speech will be curtailed to the point that the Philippines may as well declare itself a communist or fascist state where no one is allowed to speak his or her mind.

They may deny it until hell freezes over, but the new law actually increases the legal punishments for libel. Where before the penalty for printed libel was six months and one day to four years and two months’ imprisonment under the Revised Penal Code, the new law would imprison anyone convicted of committing libel in cyberspace to six years and one day up to 12 years.

The law as it is written will have a chilling effect on the country’s growing number of bloggers who are also considered as citizen journalists. The situation will be worse than the martial law era when only “the true, the good and the beautiful” could be written about the Marcoses.

Take the anti-cybercrime law to the extreme. Imagine a young man who has just turned 18. He is now legally an adult. In a fit of anger, he blasts his neighbor in his Facebook page, calling that person all sorts of names. Under the anti-cybercrime law, he can be imprisoned and may not be released until his 30th birthday.

Ridiculous perhaps, but it’s the law.

The Supreme Court to hear challenge

Of the country’s lawmakers, it appears that only Senator Teofisto “TG” Guingona recognizes the dangers inherent in the libel clause of the anti-cybercrime law. He has therefore promised to challenge the new law before the Supreme Court.

There may still be time to take corrective measures since the bill was signed into law by President Aquino only last September 12. Its implementing laws and guidelines will be drafted by an inter-agency body within 90 days from that date.

Under a worst-case scenario where Guingona’s contesting of the law fails to bear fruit, then media can only hope that the guidelines be most specific about what constitutes online libel. Muzzling anyone from using the electronic media to speak his or her mind is the worst thing that can happen.

For the record, The Manila Times does not condone the wanton destruction of a person’s reputation through the use of print or electronic media. Anyone who spreads lies and half truths about other parties should receive reasonable punishment. But even a minute in prison is already unjust and unreasonable punishment in our book.

sotto’s insolence, budget blues #RH

last wednesday, comedian senator tito sotto wrapped up his turno en contra with a sorry attempt at profundity, lifted, yet again, yes again, this time from a 1966 speech of bobby kennedy, and this time, translated into tagalog, presumably by his staff, and atrociously at that.  when challenged, he reportedly said, marunong pala managalog si kennedy, ha.  josko, parang sinapian ni iskalera of the infamous iskul bukol,  lol.  good job.

nakakadesespera, my mother would say, as in nakaka-despair, na kailangan pang ipaliwanag kay sotto na plagiarism din yon?  kahit pa ipinasalin niya sa tagalog, hindi pa rin kanya ‘yon.  what he did was to appropriate and claim as his not just the sentiments of kennedy re nation and small actions but also the way it was expressed.  and he can’t claim fair use, excuse me, not in an official senate speech where he is on record as saying that everything in his speech was original.

The making of quotations from a published work if they are compatible with fair use and only to the extent justified for the purpose, including quotations from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries: Provided, That the source and the name of the author, if appearing on the work, are mentioned;

he says a friend texted him the material.  without attribution to kennedy?  friend ba ‘yon o foe?  o me attribution but sotto thought, ah 1966, wala pang internet noon, wala ito sa google, mwahaha.

the worst of it is, walang sanctions on sotto, the arrogant recidivist.  unfortunately, the senate president, the only one higher than sotto in the senate, who is in a position to reprimand the majority leader and his staff for intellectual dishonesty, is on the same anti-RH side as sotto, and, like sotto, all he does is insist that we answer sotto’s points rather than focus on the plagiarism.  but, really, why should we even bother?  sotto’s dishonest; he has lost all credibility.

Ryan Edward Chua ‏@ryan_chua
Sen. Enrile says Senate should not concern itself with Sotto plagiarism issue: “Hindi ko na papatulan ‘yon.”

ganoon.  eh nakakawala din ng credibility ‘yang pagkampi kay sotto at pag-condone ng dishonesty.  where is the enrile of the corona impeachment trial, the one who was so strict about following the law and observing the rules of good manners and right conduct.  ay, teka, he was strict nga lang pala with prosecutors and defense counsel, but allowed fellow senator-judge miriam her rants…  so what happened to HER?  i been waiting for a WHA???  why is she so quiet now, like all the rest?  can it be, as some quarters suggest, that all of them are guilty of plagiarism in one form or another?  so complicit silang lahat?

and then, again, there’s senator drilon, who was supposed to have tweeted this yesterday:

Frank Drilon ‏@FranklinDrilon
Again, I am deeply saddened by the continuous lapse of judgment by the Senate Majority Leader. This House is not a place for mockery. 12:02 pm sept 6

apparently it’s been disowned by drilon, he has no twitter account, says his staff, and i can’t find it anymore.  hmm.  still, the question remains, why is he so quiet?  isn’t this the perfect time to take to the senate floor and challenge enrile’s and sotto’s leadership?  isn’t intellectual dishonesty, and condoning it, ethical grounds for a vote of no confidence?  or can it be that drilon does not want to antagonize sotto et al because the LP will be needing their support for the president’s budget of php 2.0006 trillion, up 10.5 % from 2012’s (1.816T), up 21 % from 2011’s (1.563T), and which leonor briones alleges to be “understated,” that is, short by 449.34 billion in principal amortizations due in 2013, and rife with “hidden and vague” items to the tune of 282 billion, how dishonest, what a coincidence.

obviously there’s going to be a lot of wheeling and dealing between the executive and legislative departments, every one looking out for himself/herself or his/her vested interests before nation’s.  but as in gloria arroyo’s time, kung di maipasa ng konggreso ang 2013 budget, this year’s budget can always be rolled over to next year.  what makes this budget so urgent, given its alleged deficiencies?  what makes it more important than the RH bill, e wala namang garantiya na ikauunlad ito ng bayan.  di bale sana kung naipasa na ang RH bill, at may budget na for the RH law.  instead, ang nasusunod ay ang wishes of 3 out of 10 filipinos and not the wishes of 7 out of 10.  anong klaseng gobyerno at demokrasya ito?

as for sotto and how to make him pay for intellectual dishonesty, it looks like we’re on our own.  like arbet bernardo’s fb status  and thread say:

The Senate Ethics Committee will not act unless a complaint is filed. So if you want to censure Sottocopier, you know what to do.

… at least pag may complaint na and they don’t act on it, para lang silang frat. Eh as of now may palusot pa sila, walang complaint, so they can’t act.

and to my question, where are the cause-oriented lawyers who are usually quick to file complaints? they won’t move on their own? maybe they plagiarize too… arbet’s response was: where is oliver lozano when you need him LOL.

seriously, what happened to civil society?  puro ba na-co-opt na ng aquino admin?  and what about mainstream media?  fence-sitting as always, hanggang reportage lang, walang taking a stand against plagiarism and spreading the word, explaining the immorality of it, down to the masses?  and what about the church, the guardian-kuno of our morals?  okay lang sa kanila sotto’s kind of deceit and duplicity because it’s for the anti-RH cause?  the ends justify the means?  good job.

sotto deserves to be sanctioned, declared in contempt of the people, for intellectual dishonesty.  it wouldn’t be the first time that a sotto is found guilty of contempt and “falsehoods,” by the way.  tila it runs in the family.

sotto, the senate, the pits #RH

other than senator miriam, who is rather forgiving of sotto…

…this is not the academe where plagiarism is a mortal sin. We should give leeway in politics, as long as later on the source is acknowledged.

and senate president enrile, who started out agreeing with sotto that a blog can be copied, and is now saying that he does not know anything about blogging, but who is of course still defending his majority leader…

Ang sinabi ko, hindi ko alam kung totoo iyung akusasyon sa kaniya tungkol sa plagiarism, pero kung totoo man, marahil ang dapat nating isipin, totoo ba, tama ba iyung kaniyang sinabi upang suportahan ang kaniyang paninindigan tungkol sa panukalang batas (RH bill) na nakasalang sa ating Senado…

and senators pimentel and arroyo, whom sotto cited in an adlib (august 29 speech) to be in agreement with him on some technicality or other vis a vis plagiarism allegations — that makes 5 senators including sotto — there are 18 others in that august chamber who have been silent as mice on the issue.  hopefully it’s not because they’re as clueless about blogs and the internet and copyright as sotto and enrile, rather, that they know better and that the pro-RH among them, sponsors miriam and pia especially, are just biding their time, ready to pounce with a vengeance when it’s their turn to respond, before any talk of amendments.

i expect nothing less than the vigor and vitriol that miriam spewed out at the prosecutor-representatives in the impeachment trial of corona.  anything less would tell us that indeed the senate these days is nothing but an old boys club, and that it’s okay lang with all of them that sotto has pulled down senate discourse to the level of eat bulaga.  yuck.  that would be really really low, lower even than the lower house.

as for sotto’s and enrile’s claim that the we in blogosphere who have been attacking him for plagiarism have no answers to his assertions vs the RH bill, hmm.  this blog, for one, has responded to some of those points, but i guess i’m under the radar, ‘no?  maybe no one’s reading me, not even other bloggers or news websites, haha, how humbling (buti na lang i’m into weil’s gravity and grace, salamat kay jorge, and i’m happy to blog as much for readers as for the record).  but there’s also dr. alberto “quasi” romualdez, former doh chief, who has been quick to respond to every argument against the RH bill via his malaya column.  i suppose he’s under the radar, too?

anyway, lest sotto continue believing that his arguments are unassailable:

(1) says sotto, “the RH bill violates the constitution that protects the unborn child from the moment of conception.”  this is all about the question of when life begins, or when “conception” happens.  at the moment of fertilization ba or of implantation in the uterus?  try googling it and you will find that there are as many arguments for fertilization, as there are for implantation, as the beginning of human life.  quite weighty, to me, is the fact that only when the fertilized egg or zygote has implanted does a woman’s urine test positive for pregnancy. 

so who is to settle the debate?  sotto?  eat bulaga?  congress? the supreme court? the president?  science?  the church?  answer: NONE OF THE ABOVE.  i say, THE WOMAN DECIDES. 

(2) says sotto, contraceptives are “harmful to the health of the pregnant mother and the unborn child.”  sotto’s proof of the harm done to the mother is the gut dysbiosis theory of natasha campbell mcbride that he plagiarized from sarah pope’s blog.  he has ordered it stricken from senate records to resolve the plagiarism issue, he hopes, but it was a lame argument to begin with.  read sotto, guts, plagiarism #RH.  according to a doctor, an internist, who does a lot of research via the internet:

Googling, found an incredible dearth of studies linking oral contraceptives to gut dysbiosis, how long it takes to develop, how long it takes to resolve on discontinuance of pills. No comparative studies. Even searching studies on gut dysbiosis in infants and neonates; there’s no mention or an “also” mention of contraceptives as cause.

sotto’s proof of harm done by contraceptives on the unborn child is a report prepared for the Royal Commission on Population in Great Britain which found that the incidence of induced abortion as a percentage of all pregnancies was nine times higher for women using contraceptives than for women not using birth control. 

it was lifted from The Truth Of Contraceptives blog, which says:

In Great Britain, in 1949, a report prepared for the Royal Commission on Population found that the incidence of induced abortion as a percentage of all pregnancies was nine times higher for women using contraceptives than for women not using birth control. [emphasis mine]

wala pang pills noong 1949.  read sotto self-destructs, and find out what kind of contraceptives women were using then that were inducing abortions.

(3) says sotto, “we don’t need it because the DOH is already doing what the RH bill wants to do.”  really?  where?  when?  how?  there’s no info campaign going on, and there are no pills and condoms and i.u.d.s available, for poor couples who might want to practice family planning once they know what their options are.

(4) says sotto,  “the RH bill will cost too much money that could be used for schools, hospitals, and medicines.”  aha.  read Mulat Pinoy, a population awareness initiative supported by the Probe Media Foundation, Inc. and the Philippine Center for Population and Development which i cited in fudging the facts: sotto’s anti-RH sob story 

Investing in family planning services will save several billion pesos, which can be used for critical social services.

The latest US and Philippine research show that governments annually spend a minimum of Php 5.5 billion in healthcare costs to address unintended pregnancies and their complications.

By contrast, only Php 2.0-3.5 billion annually is needed to fund a comprehensive range of voluntary family planning services for the entire country, which also results in a more sustainable population to provide for.

(5) says sotto, “it is not in accord with Filipino culture.”  LOL.  as if filipino culture were a fixed, static, thing that doesn’t evolve.  the … argument is a matter to be studied by sociologists and other experts in culture and social attitudes, says dr. romualdez.  besides, the surveys are consistent: an overwhelming number of filipinos, 7 out of 10, want the RH bill passed into law.

over dzmm teleradyo, the same afternoon of his aug 29 rant claiming that he is a victim of cyberbullying, i heard sotto in a phone interview with karen davila and vic de leon lima insisting that when he cried over his dead baby son, the issue was not that his son had died, but that helen had gotten pregnant despite taking pills.  my answer to that is here.  he went on to say that this is precisely the reason why he thinks pill-popping will lead to abortion: because daw women who get pregnant even when they’re taking pills would be more likely to resort to abortion.  teka, helen obviously did not.  surely he’s not saying that helen’s different from, better than, the rest of us?  obviously it’s just another fallacious eat-bulaga kind of argument.

as fallacious as calling us cyberbullies, we who blog and tweet and facebook and who have been calling him out on his plagiarizing and eat-bulaga ways.

Ako yata ang kauna-unahang senador ng Pilipinas na naging biktima ng cyber-bullying. Mula sa blogs, Facebook, at Twitter, ginawa akong sentro ng mga mapanira at malisyosong atake ng iba’t ibang tao, lalo pa ng mga sumusuporta sa RH Bill. Bahagi siguro ito ng kanilang istratehiya, lalo pa’t may milyun-milyon silang pondo. “If you can’t kill the message, kill the messenger”. Mukhang ganito ang ginagawa ng aking mga detractors. 

as usual, sotto’s reasoning is twisted and self-serving.

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior manifested by the use of force or coercion to affect others, particularly when the behavior is habitual and involves an imbalance of power. It can include verbal harassment, physical assault or coercion and may be directed repeatedly towards particular victims, perhaps on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or ability.[2][3]The “imbalance of power” may be social power and/or physical power.

sotto is the one who’s being aggressive, lashing out at us from the senate on high, from a position of power.  sotto is the the one who is assaulting and harassing us verbally from that privileged podium, accusing us of malice and, even, of attacking him for the money, as in, may milyun-milyong pondo daw.  ganoon?  i certainly haven’t been offered any.  and, really, for certain may milyun-milyong pondo rin ang anti-RH.  can sotto be fighting the RH bill out of the goodness of his heart?  once upon a time he was all for family planning, along with his eat-bulaga pals.  was he doing it for the money then?  and what, who, changed his mind kaya?

what sotto really wants is for all of us to shut up, stop ganging up on him.  lol.  if you can’t stand the heat, mr. sotto, get out of the kitchen.  to think that you are a grandson, and namesake, of the original senator vicente sotto (1877-1950).  your lolo was a revolutionary and a writer, and as senator he authored the Press Freedom Law aka Sotto Law, “aimed precisely to protect press freedom and keep irate politicians from intimidating journalists and their sources if they do not like what they read.”  how ironic, and sad for nation, that you have turned out to be one of those “irate politicians” who can’t take criticism and who’s too macho to admit that you’ve made one big mistake after another, and who seeks instead to cow and intimidate us into silence.  shame on you, mr. sotto.