Philippines: Cybercrime Law

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As of today, the number of internet users all over the world has reached more than 3billion, and 1.35% of them are from the Philippines as reported by www.internetlivestats.com. Philippines, with a current internet population of 39,470,847 and still counting, is also placed on the top 20 countries with the most number of internet users taking the 16^th spot where China is on the 1^st spot at 641,601,070 internet users.

Of the more than 100million people in the Philippines, 39.43% have an Internet connection and most of the users have social media accounts as Filipinos use social media as a way of communication. Browsing the news feed, sharing videos, taking selfies, posting status and food porn, chatting and exchanging comments are the most common activities on social media and other social online platform. Based on the survey of 24/7 Wall St., 93.9% of Filipino users were reportedly signed up to Facebook while Twitter has a 16.1% penetration rate—a reason why The Philippines is known as “The Social Networking Capital of the World”.

As Internet users increase every year, crime over the Internet is also growing. Extortion, libel, estafa, cyber bullying, cybersex, child pornography, and identity theft are the most reported cases over the years: what is the medium they are using? It’s Facebook! One of the incident cases reported by http://www.philstar.com/ last June 2012 is the extortion of the 15yr old high school student who blackmailed his classmate asking to give him Php15, 000 or he’ll post the nude photos of the victim through Facebook. The said student pretend to be a girl named Yuri Kimberly and asked the victim to take nude photos and send it to him. After sending the photos, the blackmailing began. The victim asked for help from the NBI before the deadline given by Yuri. At the meeting place where the transaction will take place, the NBI setup a surveillance camera to record the suspect collecting the Php15, 000 clips on the victim’s notebook which is also a way to confirm that the suspect is just around the school and sadly, a classmate of the victim. (Source: http://www.philstar.com/metro/813030/teen-nabbed-extortion-through-facebook).

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Due to growing crimes on the Internet, the Republic Act No. 10175 or Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 was enacted by the House of Representative of the Philippines on June 4, 2014 and the Senate on June 5, 2012. The Cybercrime law will penalize all illegal acts done through the Internet such as child pornography, cybersex, identity theft, cybersquatting, illegal access to data and, the most controversial, online libel. This law was signed by President Benigno Aquino, III on September 12, 2012. As expected, numerous petitions against provisions of the law appeared. One of this is the petition against online libel provisions which will force each user to limit their post on their own social media and other online accounts. Of course, many lawyers in Manila and users believe that this provision violated the freedom of expression and freedom of speech so netizens expressed their protest through social media. They even changed their profile picture into plain black on Facebook and made the hashtag #notocybercrimelaw trend over Twitter to show their unity against the new enactment. There are also reports about a group of programmers who’ve hacked into some of the websites of the government.

Supreme Court decided to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the implementation of the Cybercrime law within 120 days last October 9, 2012. But on May 24, 2013, DOJ declared that the online libel provision together with child pornography and cybersquatting, which are already punishable under other laws, shall not be restrained. And last February 18, 2014 the Supreme Court declared that most of Cybercrime law provisions are now constitutional including the online libel. Though online libel has become illegal, and is penalized at a degree higher than just libel, there are plenty of conditions that the author of the post has to meet before a post may qualify as libelous material online. Also, different from the previous law, abettors of a libelous post are not liable should the post qualifies as illegal—only the original poster has the burden of sanction.

Talk Back and you’re Fired—Grievances and how to properly address Superiors

Generally, labor laws are out to protect the employee more than the company—if you’re a Filipino attorney who specializes in labor proceedings, you’d know that the court will almost always pass judgment in favor of the employee. There are a lot of flexible conditions under the law that benefit the employee, although, to balance the power, there are a few laws that are made in favor of the employer (the employer is not obligated to pay for overtime that he did not ask for, for example).

Among these rights that the labor code upholds in favor of the employer is the right to terminate employees who exhibit insubordination and contempt towards their superiors.

For one, and employer can control and regulate, without restraint, every aspect of their business, all in accordance with other preceding labor laws, of course. Can the employer remove your mandated one hour break every day? No, your employer cannot. Can your employer punish you if you go beyond one hour for a break? Yes, yes your employer can. The employer can regulate and manipulate company policy without restraint so long as the policies are grounded restrictions of the labor code—some companies allow their people to play video games on breaks and some don’t; the law doesn’t have anything on this so the company can make the rules regarding the matter as they please. We’ll talk on the duality of protective and applicable laws on another article, but for now, let’s get to insubordination and disrespectful behavior.

Article 282 of the Labor Code states that there are four circumstances that, if one of them is met, will be enough reason for termination no matter the tenure or position of an employee. Two of these read “Serious misconduct or willful disobedience by the employee of the lawful orders of his employer or representative in connection with his work” and “Gross and habitual neglect by the employer of his duties.”

In the case of Nissan Motors Phils., Inc., v Victorino Angelo G.R. No. 164181, the law ruled in favor of petitioner Nissan, saying that the termination of respondent is valid, despite tenure, because of two reasons: 1) albeit respondent had the right to be able to render his leaves, he failed to delegate his task, even if temporarily, to another employee, and that 2) respondent’s Letter-Explanation was “grossly discourteous in content and tenor” so much so that it “can be ground for dismissal or termination.”

So what does that mean to us working class? Well, for one, we are expected to fulfill a certain amount of duties that the company expects of us because the court will rule in favor of the employee if the amount or nature of work is beyond the working capacity of said employee. However, we must also be responsible for said tasks and ensure that the fulfillment of said duties must not be neglected.

Yes, we have the right to free speech, but free speech entails informed and civilized discourse. We can say our grievances regarding our bosses, our supervisors, or even the system, but there must always be the precedence of respectful language and a legitimate channel (meaning through consultancy, counseling, etc., and not through gossip). As in the words of King Priam in the movie Troy (2004, Warner Bros. Pictures) “You (Achilles) are still my enemy tonight. But even enemies can show respect.”

Crimes of Passion and the Slaying of Jennifer Laude

 There is such a thing as exemption from criminal liability if, through under overwhelming circumstance, a lover kills his partner during the time he caught her in bed with another. He could even kill them both if he were that much “blinded” by his rage.

October, 2014; the body of one Jennifer Laude was found dead in a lodge in Olongapo City. Prior to her death, she was seen entering the lodge with a member of the 2^nd Battalion 9^th Marines of the US Marines, Joseph Scott Pemberton.

If Pemberton was really behind the slaying, a query may arise: can this be considered a crime of passion?

Initially, it may appear as so—according to reports, Laude’s friend gave a statement that he was asked by Laude to leave because Pemberton might find out that they’re gay and transgender. It could be possible that Pemberton slew Laude out of sheer shock upon the discovery. So does that count for a crime of passion?

Although there have been reports that two used condoms were found inside the room where they stayed in, the evidence has not yet been scrutinized as to indicate that it was used by the pair. If, though, it was proven that even with the knowledge that Laude was a transvestite, Pemberton still had sexual relations with her, it might indicate that there was some premeditation in the killing thus making it murder.

Going back to our question of law, can the hypothetical crime be considered a crime of passion? According to a lawyer in Manila, plain and simple, the answer is no. The Revised Penal Code under Crimes Against Persons provides that the perpetrator must be the spouse or father of the victim in which, after seeing the wife in bed with another man, or the daughter (sons not counted), under the age of 18, with a male sexual partner and having sex.

Unless it’s anyone else, if the action was done in a fit of unhindsighted anger, then it shall be homicide—crimes of passion may only be considered on married male individuals (the reason for which might be because the RPC is written with the Family Code in mind). If found guilty, the least that perpetrator in Laude’s death can be charged with is homicide and at most, a degree of murder (see the difference [here]).Crimes of Passion and the Slaying of Jennifer Laude

There is such a thing as exemption from criminal liability if, through under overwhelming circumstance, a lover kills his partner during the time he caught her in bed with another. He could even kill them both if he were that much “blinded” by his rage.

October, 2014; the body of one Jennifer Laude was found dead in a lodge in Olongapo City. Prior to her death, she was seen entering the lodge with a member of the 2^nd Battalion 9^th Marines of the US Marines, Joseph Scott Pemberton.

If Pemberton was really behind the slaying, a query may arise: can this be considered a crime of passion?

Initially, it may appear as so—according to reports, Laude’s friend gave a statement that he was asked by Laude to leave because Pemberton might find out that they’re gay and transgender. It could be possible that Pemberton slew Laude out of sheer shock upon the discovery. So does that count for a crime of passion?

Although there have been reports that two used condoms were found inside the room where they stayed in, the evidence has not yet been scrutinized as to indicate that it was used by the pair. If, though, it was proven that even with the knowledge that Laude was a transvestite, Pemberton still had sexual relations with her, it might indicate that there was some premeditation in the killing thus making it murder.

Going back to our question of law, can the hypothetical crime be considered a crime of passion? According to a lawyer in Manila, plain and simple, the answer is no. The Revised Penal Code under Crimes Against Persons provides that the perpetrator must be the spouse or father of the victim in which, after seeing the wife in bed with another man, or the daughter (sons not counted), under the age of 18, with a male sexual partner and having sex.

Unless it’s anyone else, if the action was done in a fit of unhindsighted anger, then it shall be homicide—crimes of passion may only be considered on married male individuals (the reason for which might be because the RPC is written with the Family Code in mind). If found guilty, the least that perpetrator in Laude’s death can be charged with is homicide and at most, a degree of murder (see the difference [here]). 

The Difference between Homicide and Murder

There’s always mention of these two in a Pinoy pop - culture, especially infamous crime investigation reality shows like SOCO. You hear an attorney in Manila pronounce how the suspect will be charged with either homicide or murder for a certain killing but never really understand which kind of killing constitutes a murder and which kind a homicide. If you are looking back on said episode, take a closer look at the suspect’s…

Intent

One of the biggest factors that separate murder from homicide is intent. You know how, in movies, people whose lives are threatened by a killer maniac have that innate right to kill for the sake of protecting his own? Even as an audience, we want to see the killer be killed by the hero-victim.

We see the difference of intent in this situation: in one end, the killer’s intent is to purely kill and on the other, the hero-victim’s intent is to protect his life even if that should mean that he has to take a life to preserve his.

So how do we quantify intent?

Premeditation

Evident premeditation, to be precise. This means that the killer, prior to killing, has made the decision to kill. As with the term premeditation, the killing has been thought about in advanced such that there has been enough time for him to think about his actions and maybe re-think about actually going through killing the victim and still does so.

It’s the difference between walking in on your spouse with someone else in bed, then killing the spouse afterwards and knowing your spouse is seeing someone else and meticulously planning how you’ll dispose of the spouse so much that you’d try to make it “look like an accident” even. The prior can be categorized as a crime of passion, but that’s a different story.

Punishment

They also greatly differ in penalty with murder being a higher form of crime than homicide. Homicide is, according to the revised penal code, punishable by reclusion temporal or a minimum of 12 years and 1 day up to a maximum of 20 years. Murder on the other hand is punishable by “reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death” meaning that it shall be forcibly sentence that the perpetrator serve the full 20 years or a life sentence (“to death”; reclusion perpetua).

The next time SOCO or Imbestigador comes on TV, you’ll know how murder and homicide differ as well as reclusion temporal and perpetua. Here’s a challenge: look closely at the judges’ rulings—do you think that they are just when it comes to murder and homicide trials?

Status and Satire: When is it Libelous?

In the recent dawn of the Cyber Crime Law in the Philippines, there was an outrage on the right to speech and how opinions are an innate right and the same goes for the ability to voice them out. I, myself, felt fears that if I let slip an unsavory opinion about a political figure or celebrity, I could do some jail time for Cyber Libel. Then a friend of mine who’s a lawyer in Manila defined libel for me, from which I learned 2 things: an opinion, even if negative in nature, does not constitute libel, and my misinformation was the source of my fears.

Let’s take one very popular post that flooded over the internet, the one about the MRT-3 giving very poor service as characterized in this photo:

Click here for the full post with necessary justification.

Why is this not libelous? Well, for one, it isn’t satirical too, but for starters, libel has to submit to 4 conditions. To be libelous, a statement 1) has be an allegation of a discreditable act, 2) has been published, 3) identifies the/a person, and 4) has the intent to malign—all of which must be met with the 4^th one being the burden that the appellant has to prove.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines satire as “using humor to show that someone or something is foolish, weak, bad, etc.”. this is characterized in popular media (the internet, primarily) through news reports that are not real, funny, and sarcastic in nature. Take the absurd (but nonetheless funny) news about Kris Aquino’s interview with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 cast Andrew Garfield. After what the social media has dubbed as an “unprofessional” interview, a satirical news report about the movie being cancelled was published, saying that the director saw that the movie will lose revenue in the Philippines and that the stars found that there should have been more product placement within the movie to make it an actual hit.

The thing with satire is that it is an informed opinion in the form of exacerbated comedy. It can sometimes be allegorical but most of the time, there is intelligent criticism within the satire and it is for the consumption of an intended audience. It’s like a Sunday column with the difference that it is a work of fiction. Further, to make satire, one has to be responsible and vigilant that one has to have been informed well and is actually a good humor writer because reasons.

So yeah, if you’re only out to give an informed critique on the current standing of the government, then by all means, be sardonic and sarcastic about it on social media (but make it good). If you, however, feel the need to share your thoughts on a political figure being unable to do his/her job well because he/she is too engrossed and busy with multiple partners, laundering money, and is homosexual, then be warned, malicious words burn you back.