A pestering relic

 

 

There was a Vicente Sotto in the Philippine Senate long before his namesake incumbent Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III rose to fame. Actually, they are related by blood. The former movie personality and now a staunch opponent of the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill pending in Congress is the grandson of the older Senator Vicente Sotto.

 

The older Senator Sotto was the main author of the Press Freedom Law (now known as the Sotto Law, Republic Act No. 53) which protects journalists from being compelled to name their news sources. Earlier in life, the older Sotto was a spirited and unwavering advocate of national independence from American rule and published the first newspaper in Cebu by a Philippine citizen. When the newspaper was suspended by the American military governor, it did not stop Senator Sotto from publishing another one for which he was later put to prison. Upon his release, he would publish another newspaper, and this time, he was found guilty of treason by the American colonial government. Even during his exile, the undaunted older Sotto would continue his fight for independence by publishing the Philippine Republic, an English-Spanish fortnightly based in Hong Kong, and later a weekly journal called The Independent.

 

One would think the grandson would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor. But Tito Sotto, the younger, took a different path. Admitting to CBS News that he was one of the two senators who inserted the online libel provision in the newly-passed Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, Senator Sotto believed it was necessary and it would not cause any additional harm.

Senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto III, outspoken opponent of the Reproductive Health Bill in
Congress and alleged to have inserted the online libel provisions in the newly enacted
Cybercrime Prevention Act. Click link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_GWz3jcDBI
to view "Sotto: Plagiarism Not Crime in the Philippines."

His critics, however, say this wasn’t so. Sotto is suspected of having an axe to grind against bloggers and those who use Facebook or Twitter accounts to post critical comments against public officials. Before the much-ballyhooed anti-cybercrime law was passed, Sotto, who is also the Senate Majority Leader, made a privileged speech attacking the proposed RH Bill. In speaking against the bill, Sotto shared his intimate and personal experience with the dangers and side effects of birth control devices.

 

Sotto’s critics on the Internet pounced on him with accusations of plagiarism, that he copied portions of his speech from a U.S. blogger and from the speeches of the late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy. Senator Sotto thought he was a victim of cyber-bullying by bloggers and Facebook and Twitter users who were taking advantage of the unregulated Internet in insulting and defaming his character. He claims that the libel clause in Cybercrime Prevention Act was not intended to abridge free speech, but only to protect ordinary people who are “victims of online attacks, character assassination and the like from people who do not observe the standards of journalism.”

 

Other than blood, the two Sottos of the Philippine Senate obviously have no kinship to each other. The older Sotto took a bolder and more principled position in favour of free speech while the younger opted restraint instead.

 

The younger Sotto did not realize the full implications of plagiarism, particularly to copyright infringements in cyberspace, such as copying the works of bloggers without their consent. Perhaps, Senator Sotto and the rest of the lawmakers who drafted the Cybercrime Prevention Act need to refresh themselves of the Budapest Convention, which the Council of Europe adopted in 2001. This Convention became the only binding international instrument designed specifically to combat cybercrime. It serves as the guideline for developing comprehensive national legislation against cybercrime and deals with crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, such as hacking, phishing, spamming, and more particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security.

 

Recognizing the growing menace of cybercrimes, the Budapest Convention is also being used in fostering international cooperation among its members in the apprehension of computer crimes. It has been supplemented by an Additional Protocol in 2003 which makes any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda through computer networks a criminal offence. One of the reasons in adopting the Additional Protocol was to recognize freedom of expression as a basic condition for the development of every human being and as a foundation of democratic society. It wasn’t meant to criminalize online or Internet libel. After all, its members and other non-member countries (like Canada, Japan, the United States and the Republic of South Africa) that have signed up to the convention are all liberal democracies where libel is no longer a criminal offence. In these states, libel or defamation is a civil wrong that can be remedied by damages, not by imprisonment.



In a related event, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has also called on the Philippine government to decriminalize libel in the case of a Davao City radio journalist who was convicted of libel in 2007 under the country’s Revised Penal Code and was imprisoned for two years. According to the UN committee decision, the Philippines violated article 19 on the right to freedom of expression and opinion of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The existing Philippine libel law as contained in the Revised Penal Code has its roots from the Sedition Act of 1901 that punished those who would advocate Philippine independence and free speech during the American colonial period.

 

Instead of decriminalizing libel and following the practice in advanced democratic states of treating defamatory libel as a civil matter, the online libel criminal provisions in the Cybercrime Prevention Act have even strengthened libel law.

 

It is worse now because a person can be prosecuted for libel under the Revised Penal Code and libel under the Cybercrime Prevention Act, which is contrary to the 1987 Constitution that assures protection against double jeopardy. According to College of Law Professor Harry Roque of the University of the Philippines, the new anti-cyber crime law even increases the penalty of cyber-libel one degree higher than ordinary libel.

 

Professor Roque, who is also a blogger, wrote in Rappler.com:

 

“This means that electronic libel is now punished with imprisonment from 6 years and one day to up to 12 years, while those convicted for ordinary libel under the RPC are subject to imprisonment only from 6 months and one day to four years and two months. And because parole, a means by which a convict may be spared from actual imprisonment may be granted only to those sentenced to serve a prison term for no more than 6 months and one day, anyone convicted for cyber libel will inevitably serve a prison term.”

 

The inclusion of online libel in the new anti-cybercrime law has diminished the objectives of the Budapest Convention, the template for anti-cybercrime legislation, and made a mockery of the Philippines’ accession to international instruments that recognize the fundamental right of individuals to freedom of expression.

 

Various individuals and groups are now challenging the constitutionality of the new Cybercrime Prevention Act. In addition to the “chilling effect” of the new law on free speech, opposition to the anti-cybercrime law also raises violation of the sanctions against double jeopardy and the right against unreasonable searches and seizure insofar as it gives unwarranted authority to the police and the National Bureau of Investigation to engage in wholesale surveillance of all cellular, data, mobile, internet and computer communications.

 

Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human rights Watch said: “Anybody using popular social networks or who publishes online is now at risk of a long prison term should a reader – including government officials – bring a libel charge. Allegedly libelous speech, online or offline, should be handled as a private civil matter, not a crime.”

 

In fact, the civil court is the best recourse for Senator Tito Sotto if he felt aggrieved or unnecessarily harassed by the deluge of criticisms against him in the blogosphere. There are appropriate and adequate civil remedies available against defamatory libel, including monetary damages. Perhaps, it is also about high time for the Philippine government to decriminalize libel as part of its maturation as a democratic society that allows its members to fully exercise their right of free speech without the threat of criminal prosecution. The time is now to get rid of this worthless relic from the past.

Robust debate necessary for change

Discussions in my alumni chat group have recently become testy, if not downright nasty that some members who cannot take the heat are asking for more drastic etiquette policing, or else they have threatened to unsubscribe from the email group. Perhaps, they are unable to appreciate that any democratic exchange of opinions is much more alive when it is robust and free-wheeling, without unnecessary censorship. Think of parliaments, Congress or the local city councils when their members passionately debate each other.

Only yesterday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heckled during his speech before the U.S. Congress. Reacting to the disbeliever in the crowd, Netanyahu said that this type of protest would only be possible in free societies, or where there is freedom of speech, which drew wide applause from members of Congress.

Free speech, or the lack of it. Photo courtersy of little tramp.

Sometimes we, as human beings, have the tendency to be thin-skinned and easily upset by criticism or opposite views. But the more dangerous side of this attitude is when we respond, although unnecessary, with vitriol or derision.

I’ve recently read messages in my alumni chat group that were aimed with disdain at one member’s fondness for writing long emails augmented with statistical data to reinforce his arguments. An apt and perhaps more courteous response would have been simply to ignore or even delete the member’s lengthy and dense messages, especially if one does not agree and has nothing to add. A cynical and derisive response, disrespectful of the other member’s right to say his piece, only exacerbates the issue more so when the obvious purpose is to shut him down from letter-writing.

One member wrote a sarcastic message enjoining the other member to take a break from his long and frequent, almost daily, letter-writing and to look after his health. Instead of the other member clogging the e-group with his emails, he suggested that he should perhaps use the telephone, a device he believed was a faster and easier mode to communicate.

Another member wrote in support and still another also agreed, even inserting a picture of a nodding and laughing chimp in his letter.

Consider that these individuals are the very first ones to complain of incivility and rudeness in the chat group. Yet, they would respond with impudent messages aimed at putting down the other member and making him look inconsolably pathetic. What did the rest of the group say about it? Nothing, which seems like an obvious conspiracy of silence that could only mean they support the public humiliation of the other person, who by his arguments, if only they would care to read them, really meant well.  

This only shows we could be hypocritical and duplicitous about the values we cherish most. We scream to high heavens when our right to free expression, for instance, is threatened but would as easily cast off the same argument when we don’t favour opposite views being expressed. In other words, we only tolerate ideas from people whose thinking is similar to ours. Those on the opposite of the spectrum should take a break, as one member suggested.

Consider, too, this argument from another member who wrote that the chat group should not be used as medium for debate and that he should not be construed as being against free speech, but an ardent supporter, yet he believes the e-group is not the proper venue to freely express one’s opinions. Where else could be the proper platform? For all intents and purposes, an alumni e-group is the best forum for engaging in ideas and opinions. How can one be so judicious and wise to argue that he favours free speech in other arenas, but not in this forum?

These aforementioned individuals who chose to take the side of intolerance instead of accommodation have not been long detached from their alma mater. Yet, they seem to have forgotten the values their education and training from the premier school of learning in the Philippines have taught and expounded from day one. How quickly the real world has eroded the idealism of their youthful days when they were still debating in the classrooms and in public squares on the fundamental right to freedom of expression.

During the 100th Commencement Exercises of the University of the Philippines in Diliman last April 17, 2011, John Gabriel Pelias, a BS Math graduate, delivered the valedictory address on behalf of the graduating class. A poor but very brilliant student, Pelias graduated summa cum laude, the highest honour a student can possibly receive, with a general weighted average of 1.016, the second highest in the history of the university.

 

Pelias asked his fellow graduates: “What can a UP graduate be proud of? What aspect of the UP culture can he or she show off that others do not have?”

Above everything, the youthful Pelias said the university has prepared every student how to respond to challenges and the most significant of these challenges is how “to overcome our responsibility to contribute to society as products of this nation’s premier state university, which may involve sacrificing our dreams of extravagant ways of life that ironically might have motivated us to work hard in our college education. The true challenge is to be able to use the critical thinking skills and knowledge we learned through UP education in the solution of the problems haunting the bigger world outside the university.”

Pelias in his closing remarks, challenged every graduate to “become part of a larger society, of a larger world.” Being UP graduates, he said, “does not mean living just our own everyday lives without regard for society’s quandaries. We cannot confine ourselves in our own boxes away from society.”

When one critically scrutinizes the arguments, including the statistics that that one member of our chat group has been espousing in his lengthy emails, it is easy to conclude that he was making good use of the critical thinking skills and knowledge that Pelias attributed to in his valedictory speech. That he learned these skills through his UP education was clearly evident in his elaborate analysis in helping solve real problems outside the university. An example is the problem of raising funds for scholarship for future UP students. While his proposal might have stirred a heated debate, which others may have found nauseating to their taste, it was a mere consequence of the need for more rigorous examination. 

Debate should not be considered repulsive and detestable, even if it takes a longer process to reach a consensus. To retreat and seek refuge in silence is a betrayal of our training at university. We cannot eternally argue in favour of the comfort and cosiness of our present situations, and to deflect anything that might seem to disturb the status quo. 

The letter-writer challenges each one of us not to be content with the argument that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. This is an argument that kills innovation on sight. Oftentimes, going with what is known leads to stagnation. Although it is quite human to like the familiar, if we don’t innovate and think of new ways of doing things, nothing will grow or change; otherwise, we will all go the way of the dinosaurs. It is the uncertainty of the unknown that drives debate or exchange of opinions. It is the only way we can test out and get an understanding of what is true.