By Ellen Tordesillas
Malaya
Aquino with foreign correspondents
This is what President Aquino said at the forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association in the Philippines Wednesday on internet libel in the Cybercrime Law which he signed last Sept. 12:
Question: My question is in regards to Cybercrime Law. Just in regards to your mantra under your term to improve human rights in the Philippines. How does opening the past and allowing people to be jailed for posting defamatory comments online improve human rights situation in the Philippines?
Aquino: Well, can I just state for the record: as the Chief Executive of this land when the proposed measure was brought before me, I had basically two options. Under the Constitution, if I agree with the same I sign it into law. If I disagree with the same, I veto everything. I cannot… I only have a line veto on the budget measure. I don’t have a line veto on other measures.
So if I really failed to sign the law then the provisions on identity fraud or to prevent identity fraud, the porn, the other aspects sought to be penalized by this law would have been left again in limbo.
Can I just give you an example? We have an Anti-wire Tapping Act. I think it’s Republic Act 4200 crafted sometime in the early ‘60s. It contains… It defines how do you–the devices that you can use; how do you commit the crime. Unfortunately, most of the enumerated methods of wiretapping no longer exist and perhaps those of us who are younger in this room will not even know what a “dictaphone” is. But it’s like a type of items that are in the law but not necessarily existing in reality.
In fact, our jurisprudence says that unless there’s a physical wire that you actually tap into then you cannot be guilty of wiretapping or illegal wiretapping. We now have the internet. My position is simple: When I read the law and I read it, I think, three times on the proposed measure it just said that there’s an existing provision on libel in the Revised Penal Code.
And libel through print should–a libelous statement in print that is sanctioned should also be a libelous statement in the broadcast media, should also–if it is still same statement existing on the net should also still be libelous. There shouldn’t be an exemption if—based on what format.
Now, the issue is increased penalties, etcetera, the arbitrary closing, etcetera. The IRR, the implementing rules and regulations have to be crafted and actually we can solicit especially for those who are reasonable individuals to perfect that which is made by an imperfect being which is man.
So we are open to having amendments to it. The Executive’s functions is to enforce the law. We cannot choose not to enforce a law that is existing. So how does it—can I just finish? How does it enhance? We are taught, when we were in the elementary, we all have freedom of speech but our freedoms or all our rights are also guided by the rights of others.
When they impinge on the rights of others then there are practical limitations. The oft-cited example when you’re in a movie house, you don’t have the freedom of speech to say that there’s a fire when there is (-unclear-). So I think the discourse should also be cognizant of the rights of all parties and not just that of the blogger.
Q: And in regards to the penalties, are you personally in favor people being jailed for defamation or libel with regards on the internet or in print? Should that be a criminal offense or should it just be as in the US and other major countries a civil problem?
Aquino: I’m divided between sometimes the personal side and the public side. I think I fully subscribed to the idea of decriminalizing it…but not lessening the atmosphere to encourage irresponsibility in certain quarters.
Q: So you are personally in favor of decriminalizing (libel)?
Aquino: Yes.
Q: Sir, good morning. Manny Mogato from Reuters. Sir, just a quick follow up on Carl’s question. Is this not an attempt by government to put the genie back in the bottle by reining in attempt online freedom of expression?
Aquino: I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?
Q: Sir, is this not an attempt by government to curtail freedom of expression by putting in the libel provision in the Cybercrime Law?
Aquino: Putting in the libel provision is not an accurate statement. It just states that under the Revised Penal Code, postings on the net are also subject to that provision. I think, the number is Section 3, 5—or something like that, ano. It’s already existing. So do we want to curtail freedom of speech? You, I think, will be one of the primary witnesses of how pervasive freedom of speech is in this country. So I think that’s an invalid question.
Q: OK. Sir, my question is on the…
Aquino: Sandali lang, ano. It’s not an urgent bill. It didn’t come from us, ano, although our law enforcement agencies were saying that there is difficulty when they arrest people engaged in fraud or, in particular, we have been deporting hundreds of people engaged in cybercrimes especially in internet fraud.
I’m not sure if I got the President correctly: he is for decriminalizing libel even on online postings.
If I got him correctly, well and good.
The President’s advisers should tell him that the Philippines is signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which states that “Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.”
It further states that “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek,receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing, or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”
When Davao-based journalist, Alexander Adonis (our co-petitioner against the Cybercrime Law) brought his case of having been imprisoned for libel before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2008, the UNHCR declared that the imprisonment imposed on Adonis for libel under the Revised Penal Code is “incompatible with Article 19, paragraph three of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”
We would like to think that Aquino was not adequately briefed by his legal advisers on the ICCPR when he signed the law. We welcome his openness to having the law amended.
It was quite an unexpected experience. I never thought that going to Perth, Australia, would be so meaningful to me for reasons other than what I expected. I had been invited by the outgoing president of FILCCA, an umbrella group of several Fil-Australian associations in the seven states of Australia. Perth belonged to one of them, the state of Western Australia.
FILCCA has been around for 24 years and was hosting its 12th Conference that is held once every two years. This year, Perth hosted the Conference and I was invited to attend it and make a presentation to the youth about volunteerism. An Undersecretary from the Presidential Communications & Operations Office was originally invited to keynote the affair but schedule and budget limitations made him available. Without him, I had two roles – presentor and keynote speaker.
I do not know why I had this idea of Perth as a mining city. I also do not know why I had images of farms aside from mine sites. Well, I had the most pleasant of surprises. I saw neither farms nor mine sites. Instead, I saw a city that qualifies, for me, as one of the most livable and enviable in the world. I saw modernity, yet I saw a subtle but effective aura of restraint.
Perth has money, more than enough money. Beyond money, Perth has land, almost limitless land that can afford to host a 400-hectare park in its center. And Perth is only one of the major cities in the seven states, having its own share of a very small population for a continent as big as the mainland United States. With only about 20 million Australians in a vast land with rich natural resources, there is no difficulty getting work – and getting paid more than in the United States.
It is no wonder that the Filipinos I met in Perth had a certain sense of security and contentment about them. Because it has the funds to go very modern, there is much about Perth that make a visitor feel that he or she is in a top city in the world. But the wisdom of the city planners and leaders apparently made them follow the beauty and functionality of Sydney and Melbourne but also avoid the excesses of both cities. As a result, there were much less skyscrapers and limited to a few areas around the city. Elsewhere, one just had expanse from homes mostly with one or two storeys.
It was not all about just space and beauty, not all about jobs and good pay, but it was especially about an air of security and well-being. A Filipino immigrant working as a geologist said that it was the perfect city to raise a family. Wow, what a compliment from a resident who belongs to the Asian minority.
With Perth as a background of a short but exciting visit, exciting because Filipinos from all over Australia were there to meet and exchange notes and experiences, I saw something even more beautiful. I saw Filipinos who were at the helm of Filipino-Australian communities still so connected and concerned about their fellow Filipinos in Australia and in the Philippines. It made me feel so proud, so hopeful. After the United States, Canada and Australia, I thought I understood that the future could not look any brighter for the Filipino race and the motherland.
There are Filipinos in more than 190 countries, mostly OFWs. These Filipinos have become a major lifeline not only for their families but also for their country. They remitted maybe as much as $ 12-14 billion last year and may remit even more this year.
Filipino migrants, though they are less in number than OFWs and do not have the contractual obligation to send their wages to their families in the Philippines, still do so with consistency and generosity. Their combined remittance to relatives in the Philippines are estimated to be over $8 billion in 2011 and more this year. No wonder our dollar reserves are now at $70 billion and higher than our foreign debt.
Australia has an estimated 200,000 Filipino-Australian population, about one-twentieth of the United States. Yet, I had this feeling that they, being migrants for less years on the average, remain more connected to the Philippines. The shorter distance compared to the United States and Canada enable Fil-Australians to afford to visit more regularly.
The optimism that is rising in the Philippines from serious changes in the quality of leadership from the Arroyo to the Aquino presidency can be multiplied if Filipino migrants from developed countries like Australia, Canada and the United States find solidarity of purpose. Because of their accomplishments, networks and resources, Filipinos abroad, from OFWs to Filipino migrants, hold the unique position of jump-starting unusual development in the Philippines more than all the financial institutions and foreign investors that we traditionally court. The power of Filipino money in the hands of OFWs and Filipino migrants can provide more than what is necessary to push development inside the motherland. Our problem is that we have never considered our own as a financial and investment base greater than what we have been used to.
As we position ourselves to move forward, it is our own neglected poor that are like a millstone around our necks. When foreign institutions like the IMF, the World Bank and ADB lend us money, when foreign corporations invest in the Philippines, there is no sentimentality or patriotism, much less nationalism, that can temper profit-taking for long-term growth. Only a people who love their own, who have their own sense of history and connectedness, can invest in both business and in their own race.
Wishful thinking, maybe, but I cannot help but hope that our leaders and government, and not only real-estate companies who sell to Filipinos abroad, will realize that our gold mine lies not only in our mountains, or that precious oil lies not only under our land seas, but that our true wealth lies in the hearts and generosity of Filipinos, here and in other countries. And when they do, there will be a Filipino renaissance to honor the perfect plan of creation.
It was quite an unexpected experience. I never thought that going to Perth, Australia, would be so meaningful to me for reasons other than what I expected. I had been invited by the outgoing president of FILCCA, an umbrella group of several Fil-Australian associations in the seven states of Australia. Perth belonged to one of them, the state of Western Australia.
