We beg to differ.
I can’t think of the right words to describe this Tweet of blogger and “social media expert” Jane Uymatiao a.k.a. “Citizen Jane” a.k.a. “The Philippine Beat”. She suggests that anyone with a fancy car who runs a business and deals with the government is stealing Filipino taxpayers’ money. Those are serious allegations you are making…
There was a movement during the passage of the anti-Cybercrime law back in 2012 calling for the decriminalization of libel. They probably shout that again with the recent arrest of Rappler head honcho Maria Ressa. I didn’t pay much attention to it then, but now that I think about it, I prefer that libel stay…
Read More “Why Libel Or Defamation Should Remain Criminally Liable” »
It is not surprising that Philippine President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino III wholeheartedly supports criminal libel in the Philippines. Luis Teodoro, BusinessWorld columnist and former dean of the College of Mass Communications of the University of the Philippines, wrote in a 2003 article about how the spectre of harassment-by-libel emerged in the Philippine scene so…
Now that there is an anti-Cybercrime law in the Philippines, stuff published online is now subject to the same libel laws that have for some time been applied to stuff published on traditional media like newspapers and magazines and broadcast on TV and radio. I suppose the principle there is that computers and their networks…
Read More “Wanking to lewd Web videos now a crime in the Philippines!” »
Senate Bill 2796 or the Philippine Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 is not a bad law. Most of the online nasties the law aims to curb are no-brainers. So I will go straight to what, to me, is its main feature that sends chills up the spine of the average schmoe… 4) Libel – The…
Read More “Who’s afraid of the Philippine Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012?” »
Media people whether they be old-school journalists, “on-line reporters” or Web publishers (such as bloggers and much of the rest of humanity who have access to Facebook and Twitter among others) are up in arms about the raft of “anti-media” bills being drafted and passed in Congress. Critics of these measures assert that these “anti-media”…
Read More “Philippine Congress mints new anti-cybercrime and anti-slander laws” »
What is up with some modern day proponents of freedom of speech? Do they really know what they are talking about? Sometimes they give me the impression that all they are good at is quoting some dead bigwig who advocated freedom of expression in the past. Unfortunately, these same bigwigs could never have imagined that…
Read More “Do Filipinos know how to use their freedom of speech?” »