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Cybercrime Law: The New Martial Law?

It has been 40 years since Martial Law was declared. That was 15 years before I was born. Lucky enough for me, by the time I was born, EDSA has happened and I was free to live a life without the fear inflicted by the iron clad rules of that time. My parents might have witnessed Martial Law but they were far removed from it being very young at the time it was declared. If they have stories to tell, it was mostly tame compared to the ones I read in memoirs of people who experienced the real gist of it.

For a time, when I hear the extreme discipline that was imposed to the country during that time, and when I compare it to the seemingly lack of discipline I witness among many fellowmen today, I am led to think that times might have been better had Marcos remained president and Martial Law carried on. But as I grew older and learned more about the events of those times, I am forced to admit that I have been gravely mistaken in wishing Martial Law was still the law of the land.

Reading this article, I am led to think that I am indeed lucky not to have experienced what the previous generation had. I am lucky to have been born in a free land where freedom of expression is encouraged and critique is accepted without repercussions of imprisonment or torture. I am lucky that I can say what’s on my mind when I want it and that I can actually expect for change to happen just because I was brave enough to care.

Yet this freedom that has been granted to me is now being curtailed. Recently, the president signed the Cybercrime Law. Admittedly, I was not aware that there was such a law being passed through the legislation. Being concerned more with the RH Bill, the Freedom of Information Act and the Sin Tax Bill which are all receiving better press time even in their infancy stages, I was caught by surprise that the Cybercrime Law has been already signed.

Relatively, I am glad that such a law has been enacted. After all, with the rampant usage of Internet in our society and with the constant complaints of cyber crimes, it is about time that a law severely punishing the perpetrators of such crime be in effect in our society. But what I am worried about (and in fact afraid of) with this new law is the fact that it punishes what it calls online libel with 6-12 years in prison without parole! Talk about a pretty serious punishment for what I deem a pretty petty crime. In fact, the law punishes online libel more than printed libel which gets only ~4 years max in prison as punishment.

What’s scary is that online libel can be deemed to include everything and anything that is published online via tweets, posts, comments, blogs, etc. that is libelous (or that is offensive) to a particular person. So if I post in my Facebook status (not that I would do so) that I am annoyed with this person because this person is (insert any negative remark here) then that person can sue me for libel. In case I dared blog about my criticism for a certain public figure, that person can hunt me down and sue me for libel. In case I tweet something that is deemed offensive by a particular person, I can be sued for libel.

What’s even scarier than that is based on what I’ve observed here in our country, once suspected (or accused) of a crime, the authorities immediately grab you and place you in prison pending investigation of your crime. With the current pace of our judicial system, one can rot in prison for years before any decent hearing of his case is conducted in court. In essence, one can be imprisoned for merely saying a negative statement about a person online! Talk about freedom of expression!

Last night, I felt anxious when I re-posted this article about a certain senator and commented that certain senator issued another contradicting statement. My anxiety was further aggravated by the live tweets of Manuel L. Quezon III (@mlq3) about the actual events during that fateful day 40 years ago. Although I did not write the original content, I knew that nothing prevented the person in question from viewing it as libelous from my end and since he is powerful, he can order an arrest or an investigation on me.

For a second, I imagined walking down the streets with fear of being abducted suddenly, never to see my family again. For a second, I feared receiving letters ordering me to take down my blog, my tweets, or my posts. For a second, I imagined my voice being silenced; my freedom being taken away from me.

Twenty-six years ago we were liberated from Martial Law which signaled the triumph of freedom in our country and the rebirth of democracy and free speech. Now, forty years after Martial Law has been declared, another more sinister Law, though not necessarily employing military force threatens the very thing our parents fought for in EDSA – the freedom to speak what we want to say; the freedom to express our opinions no matter how contrary to popular belief; the freedom to criticize the people in power and remind them of who they truly serve – not themselves but the people who elected them to office.

Those freedom they fought for, the fear they’ve managed to eliminate, is now, in my opinion, coming back to haunt us in yet another form.

Are you afraid? I am.

Related Articles:

Cybercrime Law Violates Freedom of Expression (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
Cybercrime Law: See You in Court PNoy (rappler.com)

social networking sites – redefining social networks

In this time and age, almost everyone has their own account in one of the countless social networking sites available in the internet. The internet has indeed revolutionized everything in our midst – even the way we interact with society. Making friends and reconnecting with long lost old ones are now easy with just one click of the mouse. In the past, the hype was on Friendster. Until 9 months ago, it was still on Friendster. Now, the new fad is Facebook.

I wrote an article about why Facebook is such a hit but unfortunately I could not publish it here since I’ve already sold its copyright. The downside of being a writer – a ghostwriter that is – is selling your masterpiece to someone else without your byline in it. Well, I hope to change that in the future.

In any case, when I was in high school, I loved the simplicity of Friendster. I had so much fun writing testimonials for each of my friends – recounting my memories of them and citing the great aspects of their personalities. But Friendster had to change, and the change I saw was not good at all so I switched to Multiply. Unfortunately, not too many people made the switch with me but that was ok. I still kept the Friendster account and simply redirected people to Multiply. I also had other social networking sites like Hi5, Ringo and MySpace but they didn’t work out. Then came Facebook.

For several weeks, I had so many invites in my email from reputable friends. I ignored all of them. I do not like riding on to a fad. But when this blogsite said they had a Facebook group, I decided to join in on the bandwagon. At first I though I could disguise myself but thought better of it after seeing countless of my reputable friends using the service. So there I was, a newbie at Facebook. Weeks later, I was an expert. I had so much fun using the service, I wondered why I didn’t start earlier. There were just so many games to try, quizzes to answer and friends to connect to. It was also great organizing my friends into the social networks I’ve met them.

I was not the only one who found Facebook fascinating. My mom does to. It was through the service that she found her high school classmates, even her elementary friends. Imagine that! And it’s not just my mom who have such positive experience but my friends’ moms as well. The games even captured their interests.

But there are still some people who are not captured by the Facebook fever. I have this friend who adamantly maintains his Friendster account even when he has already signed up for Facebook. He has only one friend in Facebook which I believe is his sister. The rest are pending friend requests. He insists that he will wait for 200 friend requests before he jumps in the bandwagon. So far, he has 121 and counting.

The success Facebook has achieved is quite phenomenal. Let me state Facebook’s brief history. It started out as Facemash, a site asking who is Hot and who is Not on the Harvard campus. It was invented by Mark Zuckerberg. He was blogging about a girl who dumped him when the idea hit him. He hacked into facebook accounts of the nine Houses in Harvard, got the inhabitants photos and compared them on his site. He generated a lot of page views. He was ultimately sanctioned for what he did but the idea had been born. He soon began working on a code for The Facebook (thefacebook.com). He was later joined by some of his friends who were in charged of various aspects for running the site. Initially, membership was restricted to Harvard but it soon expanded to other schools. Soon it expanded to the world. For a detailed story, check out the wikipedia article.

Well, so much for Facebook and social networking sites. I have other work to do. 😀 I wonder what site or service would soon capture our interests next.

on awards and recognitions

I have had the honor of being a finalist in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards – a really funny incident for me considering the circumstances of how I was encouraged to make public my otherwise private blog and how I got nominated to the PBA in the first place.

I have been blogging since 2005, despite the fact that when it initially became popular in the online community, I had detested it. I have been writing journals since I was a kid – from diaries of daily activities to personal opinions of what is happening around me. I have never published any of this work especially since they are contained in “volumes” of notebooks and were always for my private eyes alone. Yet some twisted part in my brain urged me to publish my thoughts in a blog yet my sense of privacy compelled me to keep it private for a long time.

One day, I was doing a search for information about Mar Roxas. I knew he had a blog I was following for some time yet I lost the link. I was trying to locate it when I encountered a blog which featured news about Mar Roxas. I was shocked at what I read! At first I thought it was true. I had no idea it wasn’t. But when I read the sidebar, I knew I had been goofed. I enjoyed the blog – perusing its other stories and laughing my heart out. I back read each and every entry although it took me days to do so. Eventually I got out of my lurker identity and joined the throngs of commenters in the blog. The response of the blog owner – his hospitality and warm welcome – really amazed me. And it was his blog that urged me to publish my own.

Because of his blog I saw what it would be like to share your thoughts to people – not just keep them for your own. Because of his blog I got a glimpse of what it would be like to have a devoted sea of blog followers even blog pals or friends that can be like another social network in this vast and dynamic world. I now have my own blog pals and my blog stats have increased to numbers I never knew it would reach before – still a humble number compared to what other blogs are receiving but then who’s in a rush?

And so I owe a lot to Good Times Manila. And for that reason I’m rooting for it on the 2009 Blogger’s Choice Special Awards.

Another thing, GTM did for me was to hook me up on Facebook. Facebook to me before was just another fad, a social networking site that everyone was joining but I was too lazy to join to despite the countless invitations I receive from friends. But after GTM said it had a Facebook account, I decided to join. And now my Facebook account had evolved into gargantuan proportions. It had surpassed my Friendster and Multiply accounts of which I use sparingly now. And Facebook, I must say, connected me to more people in my various social networks than the other social networking sites had ever done.

So to Deejay, the maker of GTM, I wish you all the luck – may you win in all 3 categories your blog is nominated for. Good job man!

******

When I made my blog public, I initially lamented at the sparse traffic it was getting. I had views of ony one or two a day, sometimes zero. And I knew that they were most probably my siblings or parents. But then the number started increasing, albeit slowly, as I waded my way unto other blogs and commented on their entries. As time passed, traffic increased yet it had never reached 200 views in a day and the average view per day would be about 20. But I was happy. My blog had been private for so long that these numbers were a welcome change. And people I didn’t even know started commenting and I was glad for that.

Then I encountered the PBA logo on some of the blog sites I went to. I admired those sites and I was happy they got nominated. I wondered when my time would come. Then sudden inspiration hit me – why not enter my blog to the PBA? There’s nothing wrong I presume with nominating yourself. So I did, with some small hope that I would get in but more so with just a happy thought at seeing the logo displayed on my site. I was happy for that.

I didn’t knew I was a finalist till about 2 days after the announcement. Someone made a post in my Facebook Wall congratulating me and someone already commented on it without my knowledge. I then went to my blog, saw another congratulatory comment in one of my posts and so I proceeded to investigate. Indeed I was a finalist. Tears of joy sprang to my eyes. I could hardly believe it.

I wished there was some logo that would announce to the world that I made it; that someone had judged my blog and found it acceptable. One of the reservations I had when I made my blog public was the judgement the public would have on my opinions and views. It took me such a long time to be ready to own up to my opinions and stand up for them. Now I am. I can stand up for what I say here and defend my views, whether popular or not.

I have never considered blogging for any award or recognition. I simply wanted an avenue to vent out all the thoughts crammed in my head. I never even thought of writing to please anyone. And so I am euphoric that my blog got in. To me it somehow validated my worth as a writer; as a blogger. Less than a year after I made my blog public, to receive such commendation is, to me, priceless.

I do not know if I will make it. I hope I do, of course. But I know I am up against really wonderful blogs and I have great respects for them. I know it is a tight competition indeed but as Brilliante Mendoza said in an interview with Yes! Magazine, the artist create his masterpiece not because of the award. The award is just a bonus. He creates the artwork as an expression of his beliefs or his message to the world.

*******

I have received the RSVP invite for the Award’s Night. Although I badly want to go, I’m afraid I may not be able to. For me to attend the event I would be missing two training sessions and since I am just starting, I cannot do that. Also, the trip (expenses, energy) would be too much for me especially in the wake of the recent onslaught of the previous typhoons. I cannot gamble my security at this point.

And so it is with much regret that I won’t be able to attend the said event. I hope next year I get to become a finalist again so I could attend the event. Who knows what direction my blogging activities would take by that time? I plan to also create a number of blogs on other topics; it’s just that I need to find time to do so.

To all the other finalists, good luck to you all and kudos to PBA for a job well done!

too much devastation…and it may not be over yet

I felt the rage of Ondoy’s devastation because I lacked Internet connection. For me, that was the extent of the damage the typhoon caused – I was disconnected from the world. We do not have the luxury of television in our house so combined with the radio, the Internet is the only way we can know what is happening outside the walls of our home. Unbelievable? Believe it. It’s true.

Now, I have reconnected and the things I’m seeing – the pictures and videos, plus the posts I’m reading – in Facebook and other blogs, are appalling, devastating and quite painful for me. I can see the place I’ve considered home for 5 years wrecked into unimaginable proportions. I have never imagined that Manila and the surrounding localities could be devastated as such. Deep down, I want to be in the center of things – offering my physical help to those in need. I have no money or extra stuff to donate, all I have is myself and my willingness to offer physical labor for the good of all. I have no doubt that if I was still living in QC I will be out there, in the relief centers, volunteering my time and energy. Yet I am here. And I am thankful for that. And all I can offer now are my prayers that everything turn out well for everyone.

***

Now in the course of my vigilant watch over the Facebook status messages, I have come to discover several things.

1.) Politicians are certainly taking this disaster to aid them in their own greedy means. I am not generalizing everyone – I mean I saw a post in Facebook of a photo of a packed meal bearing the terms “Tulong Mula Kay Manny Villar”. Amazing that people had time to actually print out those labels, cut them and tape them on the relief goods. And funny how, in our country, when we do good things, we should inform people where the good deeds came from. Isn’t it stated in the Bible that we must do our giving in secret and not announce it to the world with trumpets and so much fanfare (Matthew 6:1-4)? Yet some people like some of our politicians can’t seem to grasp the concept of anonymous giving or giving for giving’s sake. Why can’t they be like some famous people who didn’t thought of who they are but instead only thought of how they can help? Oh well, at least relief is handed out to those who need it. And I hope that this does not cloud the judgements of the voting public.

2. The devastation wrought about by Typhoon Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) has attracter internation attention wherein even Hollywood stars are mobilizing themselves to help out. It’s no longer just the Filipino International Community that is eager to help but even foreigners as well. Let’s just hope that their reliefs come as they have sent it – not modified to look as if it came from some other enterprising politician or worst, screened by some greedy “custom officials”.

3.) The typhoon Ondoy didn’t discriminate between rich or poor when it came to the devastation it wrought. However, how people cope with the aftermath displayed social status like no othe tragedy can. I heard in the radio that the people in Provident Village, which have been badly affected by the flood also, have really interesting means of salvaging their homes – that is if the choose to salvage it. The reporter said the owners of the house went to hotels to spend their days there while leaving their house help to fend for the house. Furthermore, some have hired people (the announcer made a joke that it could be construction firms) just to clean the houses of mud. However, it cannot be denied that most of their really expensive appliances suffered the same damage as any other less privileged person’s appliance.

4.) It is touching to see the numerous posts in Facebook relating to relief and rescure operations for Ondoy. Indeed, there’s nothing like a tragedy this enormous in magnitude to draw out the bayanihan nature of Pinoys. And it is touching to see that we can still unite, make merry of circumstances even.

Two more typhoons are expected to hit the country, where they will actually wreack havoc is unknown, as of now. We can only watch and pray that they no longer cause havoc as devastating as the one that had just passed. The devastations, as I believe I said in my earlier post, had a lot to teach us – issues on pollution and littering, issues on proper preventive measures, issues on emergency funds supposedly misaligned, abusive politicians, the need for the country to repent of its sins and pray more, etc. There’s a lot to be learned and I hope that, even with the dawn of the 2 upcoming typhoons, we have learned our lessons.

***

Here’s a video I found in Facebook.

***

My apologies to those who don’t have Facebook accounts. Apparently, you have to be logged in to FB to be able to view some of the links here, most of which are video links. If I find a way of posting the videos directly here, I will certainly edit this post and do so. 😀 In any case, here’s another touching story connected to Ondoy: Philippine man loses own life after saving dozens from floods.

Friends For Sale

There is this really funny app in Facebook that when I first encountered I found weird and quite disturbing. I said I will never use that application. But after a lot of invites from friends, curiosity got the better of me so I finally managed to use the app. And with somewhat funny results!

Now I have debated whether I will write about this. For all I know the persons involved and concern may be reading this very post. But then again, my conscience is clear, I write in the guise of anonymity and I am confident that I can stand up for whatever opinions or stories I share here.

And so I used the app. I bought one of my guinea pigs at work (for clarifications you can just look for the post about this). And in less than an hour, his girlfriend added me as a friend in Facebook. My expression was “oh-oh, why is she adding me up when I do not know who she is and I am pretty sure she doesn’t know who I am”. But still, I added her up. And she sent me a message through the Facebook chat app – “Binili mo boyfriend ko (you bought my boyfriend)”. I simply said, “Yeah. I was buying people randomly and he came in cheap.”

At this point, I was already considering deletingthe app. I am not comfortable thinking of people as something you can buy for some monetary value – where others are labelled as cheap and others expensive. Yet it was fun to play with it – for the meantime.

So girlfriend here talked to me for sometime then said that her boyfriend will use the PC so she had to log out. I said, “Sure”. So the guy comes online yet I dare not talk to him about the incident lest girlfriend is watching us. The guy also did not bother talking to me. Well I had more important things to attend to so I didn’t really mind. Then in about 30 minutes the girlfriend comes online again. Of course the guy went offline. And the girlfriend resumed her conversation with me.

Funny, interesting and curious incident.

Next thing I knew, my new owner was now girlfriend. And no matter how many people bought me from her, she insists on buying me back.

Again, funny, interesting and curious incident.

Yet now, I have a new owner. Girlfriend is also no longer my pet since someone else bought her from me and I have no intentions of buying back friends from people who buys them from me. In fact, I have all intentions of deleting the app. Mafia Wars is still more my thing. And I don’t even like the farm inspired applications because I’ve had experiences with real-live farms and I’m sick of them.

My brother said that in Friends For Sale, you see how people treat their relationships – especially boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. He said that most girlfriends find it annoying if somebody else, especially a girl buys their boyfriends from them.

Again, funny, interesting and curious incident.