Ressa, the cybercrime law, and media freedom
IT
will take some time before the furor over Maria Ressa’s arrest on a cyber libel charge dies down. “It is a travesty of justice. It is ridiculous, ludicrous, a benchmark,” she said. And, from all over the world, freedom and rights advocates came in defense of Ressa, CEO of Rappler and one of Time’s Persons of the Year in 2018. This new case has been filed after the earlier tax evasion charges a few months ago. This time, it was from a report published May 29, 2012, which was months before the cybercrime law was enacted. The story written by a Rappler reporter said that a car used by former Chief Justice Corona belonged to businessman Wilfredo Keng, who has alleged ties to human trafficking and drug smuggling rings. Keng filed the libel case for which she was issued an arrest warrant.
Ressa was finally released after spending a night at the NBI office but supporters and rights advocates continued to issue statements and other forms of open support for Ressa, calling it an act of persecution and harassment.
Let’s go back to the 2012 Cybercrime Act which was intended to address legal issues concerning online interaction and the Internet. Among the cybercrime offenses are cybersquatting, cybersex, child pornography, identity theft, illegal access to data, and libel. But the law was criticized for extending the definition of libel in the Revised Penal Code which the UN noted as inconsistent with the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and therefore violates freedom of expression.
After several petitions to the Supreme Court questioning its constitutionality, the law was revised in May, 2013, by dropping provisions on libel as well as acts punishable under other laws like child pornography and cybersquatting. A Magna Carta for Philippine Internet Freedom was crowd-sourced by netizens with the intent, among others, to repeal the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. But until this is done, we have to face the realities of living in a democracy that is faced with threats like this as well as fake news, disinformation, and misinformation. Which is becoming a global epidemic, according to Portuguese journalist Manuel Serrano who, in an online article, describes the threats to media freedom with a quote from Espanol: “Defending media freedom has never been so important. Governments are becoming subtler in attempting to hide the truth. Journalists must become subtler too in uncovering it.”
He further cites “Reporters without Borders” and “Freedom House” which describe how “States are using new, more subtle and sophisticated techniques to intimidate, harass, and delegitimize journalists. These practices weaken our democracies and make them prone to manipulation. The truth, as Orwell predicted, is on its way to becoming what our leaders want it to be….And it is becoming a global epidemic.”
How do we counter this trend? In this age of ai (artificial intelligence), the growing “Internet of Thing” and Internet-connected activities, citizens must continually be aware of subtle threats and consequences and gird themselves with appropriate knowledge and skills to enable them to resist such threats surrounding us.