Pros and Cons arise at different latitudes of the country. **Well, most of what I’ve heard was cons.
So what is it anyway? If you would take time to read the law which is naturally long at the Philippine’s Official Gazette, you’d notice that most of them are naturally known crimes. It’s just that, they are punishable by law now.
It was known as Republic Act No. 10175 or more commonly referred to as the Anti-Cybercrime Law.
For some, we knew that doing deviant acts is naturally wrong while some wait for the law to consider it a crime. Way back in the year 2000, a virus was accidentally spread by a Filipino, which we commonly knew as the “ILOVEYOU” virus. If my memory serves me well, they told us that we didn’t have any CyberCrime Law back then unlike what we’re experiencing now. There were two suspects at that time namely Reomel Ramores and Onel de Guzman and when they were arrested, the NBI didn’t knew what to charge them with so they were released with all charges dropped by state prosecutors. After the incident which obtained a world record then resulted to the birth of Republic Act No. 8792 which was also known as E-Commerce Law in July 2000.
Back to the topic… What’s hot?
What’s hot was that you could accuse someone with libel because of the said law, restricting most of us to our freedom to express our thoughts.
Brad Adams, Asia director for HRW said that “Allegedly libelous speech, online or offline, should be handled as a private civil matter, not a crime,” – Yahoo News
And also from the news, libel has a large scope specially when attached to Cyber Crime. Who should be punished? The one who expressed his/her thoughts? The one who agreed with them? Or the one who shared and spread the issue?
While the author of the Law said,
"We have to give the law a chance and see how it will be implemented. Only then will the loopholes and the gaps be identified and properly addressed. But as it is, I believe this law is a milestone for ICT in the country,"
So what would happen to someone who was charged during the law then was revised during his punishment? Would he be entitled to criminal record? What about the years/months or any charges filed against him?
If we wait for loopholes or gaps, then many will suffer before we realize what we’ve done wrong. That’s why, before passing a law/bill, it should be read and analyzed thousands of times.
A crime is a crime there is no doubt about that. But it wouldn’t hurt us to think about the innocent that will be affected.
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