Cyber wars

Almost everything happens in cyberspace today. Long-distance friends get to chat, students get to do their homework, and businessmen get to transact. All these and more take place on-line. The world has been made smaller, the people closer, and processes and functions easier with technology.

The Internet has immense potential. Nobody can truly account for all the possibilities that could come about in cyberspace. However, there are always two sides of a coin. If the Internet has brought good to this world, it has also brought evil.

With the onset of technological advancements, abusive and corrupt people have used the power of the Internet to carry out their evil intentions. If crimes in the “real world” are widespread, so are the crimes on-line.

Crimes in cyberspace, or simply cybercrimes, are criminal offenses conducted through the Internet. Rampant in the Philippines are crimes such as hacking, computer-related identity theft, cybersex, child pornography and spamming. Due to the alarming rise of internet-related law-breaking, the government has taken measures to prevent the occurrences of such offenses. After all, an offense is an offense and no offense should go unpunished by the Law.

On September 12, President Benigno Aquino III signed Republic Act 10175, otherwise known as the “Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.” According to Sec. 2 of the law’s preliminary provisions, the State “…recognizes the need to protect and safeguard the integrity of computer, computer and communications systems, networks, and databases, and the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and data stored therein, from all forms of misuse, abuse, and illegal access by making punishable under the law such conduct or conducts. In this light, the State shall adopt sufficient powers to effectively prevent and combat such offenses by facilitating their detection, investigation, and prosecution at both the domestic and international levels, and by providing arrangements for fast and reliable international cooperation.”

R.A. 10175 intends to eradicate cybercrime in the Philippines. It outlaws cybersex, child pornography, computer-related forgery, fraud and identity theft, illegal access, illegal interception, data interference, system interference, misuse of devices, cyber-squatting and aiding abetting and attempting the commission of these crimes.

The law has gained quite a number of detractors despite its good intentions. It has earned the dissent of the people because there are issues regarding the stated provisions in the act believing that it infringes the people’s freedom to express.

“It limits me the information from different public figures and it may cause doubt in me. It also limits my power to express,” says Jocen Pagayona, B.S. Management student.

The law also incorporates criminal libel into cyberspace. The conditions applied to criminal libel will be made applicable to cyberspace as well. According to a prominent blogger, teenagers unwarily tweeting or re-posting libelous material on social media run the risk of getting sued for libel.

“It’s scary. It’s as if we (students) will be silenced. The freedom that we are enjoying online will be gone because of the fear of being accused,” says Annie Fe Perez, third year Mass Communication student of the University of the Philippines Cebu.

“I can’t say things about personalities now without fear of them hunting me down with a libel case. If enough libel cases occur, the governing bodies have the authority to completely cut off access to said sites,” adds Silliman University I.T. student, Arvin Tarroza.

One of the issues the web community is crying out about is that these unguarded teenagers or anyone who posts a libelous comment faces a maximum prison term of 12 years and a fine of 1 million pesos. This sentence is of even greater magnitude than those of traditional media practitioners who are charged with libel. The latter only faces a maximum of four years in prison and a fine of P 6,000.

Congressman Teddy Casiño from the Bayan Muna partylist said, “Imposing libel on the Internet, particularly social media, like Twitter and Facebook, is like imposing libel on ordinary conversations.”

Contrary to what most people believe, this law will do more good than harm.

The inclusion of libel in R.A. 10175 has caused uproar among netizens. Due to misguided and misdirected criticisms, most, if not all, have dismissed the Cybercrime Prevention Law as altogether malign.

R.A. 10175, in its totality, is not at all evil.  Along with its many good intentions, it seeks to contain the monstrosities that lurk in the Internet. It just happened to be launched prematurely thus creating much confusion among the people. With the needed revisions, the non-inclusion of libel, it will be just what the Internet needs. Hopefully, it will do the Filipinos good as well.

Finger-pointing, debates based on ignorance and unreasonable cyber disputes must be put to an end. We must be one in advancing the truth and the common good. The Filipino people cannot afford to wage war against one another when there still remains a greater evil that needs to be defeated.