(philstar.com)
MANILA, Philippines - The Senate hearing on various cybercrime-related bills started Monday with Senator Ralph Recto admitting that lawmakers still lack knowledge on information and communication technology (ICT).
Recto, chairman of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, said this does not come as a surprise because historically, there is a lag time between technological innovation and legislation.
"In general, the IQ - or ICT quotient - of Congress remains low," Recto said in his opening speech. "Despite our image as IPad-toting, Facebook-sharing, selfie-taking, Candy Crush-playing class, there is still a deficit of knowledge when it comes to ICT rule-making."
Recto's committee and three other Senate panels are currently holding a joint hearing on the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, the proposed Magna Carta for Philippine Internet Freedom and the bills creating the Department of ICT and the national council for information technology and development.
But Recto said it will take more than four committees to create the necessary laws related to ICT.
"Thus, we will be crowdsourcing ideas, because on this complex matter, the Senate needs all the inputs, from the widest sources, it can get," Recto said.
Online libel
Last week, Recto filed a bill decriminalizing libel after following the Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the online libel provision of the Anti-Cybercrime Act.
Echoing the dissenting opinion of Justice Marvic Leonen, Recto said the Civil Code already provides other means of preventing abuse and unwarranted attacks on the reputation or credibility of a person.
"To those who fear that decriminalizing libel would make defamation a national sport, I say that there remains other means to penalize slurs and smears," Recto said.
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