Philippine Cybercrime Prevention Act

Black Out
In protest of the Cybercrime Prevention Act

Philippine social networks are ablaze with activity nowadays. It was initially about the actions of a certain misguided senator related to the RH Bill. Now it’s the approval, insertion of the libel clause (by the same senator), and impending enactment of the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

Not going too much into detail about the law and the people involved. There’s enough of it floating around the Internet that a simple search would give one a lot of references from EFF, Forbes, Mashable, and the like. It is enough to say that it would certainly impact freedom of expression as certain provisions are vague and open to a differing interpretations. It is also a complete disregard of a UN resolution (while non-binding, is basis for international laws) concerning Internet freedom (which coincidentally was not signed by the Philippine delegation during the deliberation).

We’re voicing our opinion as part of the Philippine startup community, while IT professionals like us work very hard to put the country on the map to attract foreign investors, our government keeps blundering and makes ill-advised decisions that cancel out our efforts. While the US has gotten rid of SOPA, PIPA and similar laws the Philippines makes a mockery of it with the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

And we could become criminals under the law for expressing our opinions.