KABATAAN PARTY-LIST
KASHMER Diestro, chairperson of Kabataan party-list – Capiz Chapter, expresses the group’s opposition to the Cybercrime Prevention Act during a protest in Capiz on October 8.
ROXAS City — Kabataan party-list – Capiz Chapter and other progressive youth groups held a picket against the Cybercrime Prevention Act on Monday, a day before several groups in the country staged their own rounds of protest against the new law.
They gathered at about 3:30 p.m. in front of Filamer Christian University (FCU) and later marched to Capiz State University (CapSU) Main Campus.
“Students in universities must be actively involved in this battle. We should not just sit in the corner and shut up when our rights are being trampled (on),” said Kashmer Diestro, chairperson of Kabataan-Capiz.
“We need to educate even those who are not yet Internet users. Because even netizens are not aware of the consequences of this law to their rights, may it be political and civil. How much more these common citizens,” he added.
FCU is the only private university in Capiz and CapSU, the lone state university.
The passage of Republic Act (RA) 10175 will hamper freedom of speech, expression and the press, the Kabataan said in a statement. Even the right to privacy and the essence of civil liberty is now at stake, it added.
Thus, the newly signed law “is a direct assault of emancipation, a serious threat to netizens — a martial law in the World Wide Web,” Pastor Ronald Parpa of FCU Chaplain’s Office pointed out.
Kabataan party-list Rep. Raymond Palatino compared the “e-martial law” to the martial law decrees, particularly the Letter of Instruction No. 1, which led to the sequestration of several media outlets during the Marcos dictatorship.
With specific guidelines on the prevention, investigation, suppression and imposition of penalties for cybercrimes, which include, among others, online libel, the new law is a threat to privacy per se, the party-list said.
Online libel is a special provision in RA 10175 through an insertion in the original version of the bill. Under it is a list of Dangerous Cybercrimes that would fundamentally affect or alter the implementation of the law, the group said.
Anybody, without exception, could be subject to this unconstitutional enforcement of this altogether anti-people and repressive RA 10175, it stressed.
The new law is “only for the benefit of the powers-that-be to legitimize their screwed interests against their critics,” Diestro said. “So we must fight for our rights! Junk the Cybercrime Prevention (Act)!”
