Today’s cyberlibel conviction of Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos, Jr. cannot come in a more inopportune time. The Filipino people saw shutdown of ABS-CBN on May 5, the railroading of the “terror bill” since May 29 (now pending the signature of the president to become law) and a cyber libel conviction today, June 5. All these historic moments straining the nation’s press freedom, democracy and rule of human rights happened during the COVID-19 pandemic and existing quarantine protocols in the country—while we were all ordered on lockdown.
In our faith in press freedom, a lot of us were oddly optimistic for an acquittal. When the news of cyber libel conviction came in, a lot of us were not surprised but still horrified nonetheless in this latest blow to press freedom. The guilty verdict carried the penalties of six months to six years of imprisonment, P200,000 moral damages and P200,000 exemplary damages.
Today’s verdict sets a dangerous precedent not only for journalists, but also for every Filipino online. The one-year prescription period of libel is extended to 12 years in cyber libel. The “theory of continuous publication” makes it possible for all online articles or posts to be evaluated for violations of the country’s Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (also known as the cybercrime law).
[The article in question was published by Rappler before the cybercrime law came in effect, but was updated to correct a spelling error later and was subjected to cybercrime law for “republication.” The article written by Santos said that the late former Chief Justice Renato Corona was using certain sports utility vehicles, one of which was traced to businessman Wilfredo Keng, the complainant. Rappler time and again explained Ressa had no editorial involvement in the story. Keng filed the complaint only in October 2017. This complaint was dismissed by the National Bureau of Investigation in February 2018 due to the lapse of the one-year prescriptive period for libel, only for it to be revived in March of the same year. The Justice department said that the prescriptive period for cyber libel is 12 years, not one year.]
Even before the cybercrime law took effect, Filipino journalists and press freedom advocates has been pushing for the decriminalization of libel. We should not forget how presidential spouse Mike Arroyo in the early 2000s inundated 46 journalists with 10 libel suits and demanded millions of pesos in damages on various news they wrote about him in a country where the cost of hiring a defense lawyer is worth more than months of a journalist’s salary. He dropped the cases as a “gesture of peace” on World Press Freedom Day in 2007, but it was really due to journalists pushing back and they even filed a class-action suit against him for abusing his right to file libel suits and curtailing press freedom.
To add insult to injury, the cybercrime law was passed in 2012. Journalists and the Filipino people fought the passage of the law that included stiffer criminal penalties for cyber libel than the current libel on print and criminalizing posts online (e.g sharing a post later found to be libelous or posting defamatory comments on Facebook or Twitter). The original goal of the law was to penalize acts like cybersex, child pornography, identity theft and unsolicited electronic communication in the country. Online libel was not part of the original bill proposed by the Department of Justice, but it was one of the amendments included by the Senate as proposed by Sen. Vicente Sotto III.
And even when harassed online by anonymous accounts or in public by government officials, journalists in the country would not dream of using for legal suits the draconian cybercrime law that we know undermines freedom of expression and press freedom.
By 2016 onwards, the deluge of “fake news” and online trolls that perpetrate “fake news” in the last few years discredited the work of news media, harassed journalists online and undermined the work of journalists. Journalists were also swamped with fact-checking those that propagate false information, but it has become cumbersome if and when it is government officials themselves who commit or perpetrate the same.
The “terror bill,” where Sotto is also one of the sponsors, is in the same vein as the cybercrime law, where in the former the intent was to go after terrorists but would more likely give authorities an easier time and more legal weapons to crack down on government critics and activists.
We have had a long and difficult road in the fight to press freedom and democracy. We see how these are under attack more increasingly and ferociously today. But we cannot falter in the name of journalism as a public service and a public trust. In the name of all journalists who came before us, some of whom sacrificed life and limb in the name of truth, press freedom and democracy. We must defend press freedom.
