Magsaysay wants obscene text messages declared a crime

Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. will file a bill seeking to make the sending of obscene text messages a crime.

Magsaysay said his bill aims to amend Republic Act 7887, the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law, to classify the act of sending obscene text messages as a form of sexual harassment.

"This is unfair to the receiver of such unwanted text messages and those using this technology for such ignoble purpose should be reminded," he said.

Magsaysay said it was time to update the law in the face of widespread use of text messaging among a vast number of Filipinos.

It has become easy for an individual to sexually harass another via "text message," he added.

In Baguio City, President Arroyo said that when she was senator she sponsored RA 7887 because her daughter Lourdes was sexually harassed by a foreign service officer in 1996 during an internship at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

"It was what inspired me to file RA (7887)," she told reporters at the presidential summer residence.

"Was it 1994 or 1996? I was senator back then and the case was dismissed in 1998 when I was already vice president."

Mrs. Arroyo said Lourdes or Luli was "inappropriately accosted" by foreign service officer Jose Ampeso on Nov. 8, 1996 during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council conference at the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority freeport zone in Zambales.

Records at the foreign affairs department show Ampeso was promoted to minister-counselor at the Philippine Embassy in Singapore on Jan. 1 last year.

Mrs. Arroyo said she was not aware of Ampeso’s promotion, but future movements in his career will have to go through the Chief Executive.

In her affidavit, Luli swore that Ampeso asked her about "her political relationship" and why she was "still up at that late hour" on the day of the incident.

Ampeso was reportedly drunk at the time, and had invited Luli to sit at his table and have a drink with him. He was said to have also "bumped" her on her side when she was about to leave, although he apologized.

Mrs. Arroyo said it took the Foreign Service Board two years to make a decision on Ampeso’s case after Luli had filed an administrative case against him. – Aurea Calica, Artemio Dumlao, Marichu Villanueva