Did you know Online Libel has been around since 2001?

That’s not all. One of the criticisms of the cybercrime law is that it specifically criminalizes online libel. As a special law, it is mala prohibitum, meaning, it is punishable regardless of your intent.

Such that, under the old law, if you were in good faith (i.e. publishing a hard hitting expose), or it was the truth (i.e. a lawmaker really did just translate a speech from English to Filipino) you could be in the clear.

Under the new law however, that defense would not be available to you.

The more laws, the more holes, the more ways criminals and corrupt politicians can escape.

So if you are a witness to a crime or an injustice (think of the man humiliating/berating the MMDA cop gone viral) and you caught it on video and you post it, you can get sued for it and end up in jail for life for showing the world how cruel some people are and witnessing injustice. Obviously, this is damaging to them (even if they are at a wrong) but to get back at you for posting it they’re going to sue you and you end up in jail. Are you protected in some way for this?

FYI: The rule on electronic evidence doesn’t govern criminal cases. it is applicable in civil actions, administrative, and quasi-judicial proceedings (see sec. 2 of the rule, A.M. 01-701-SC). The practical effect is that electronic documents, when used as evidence in criminal proceedings (such as those for online libel), must still be authenticated as provided in the Rules of Court – this makes it harder to simply offer screenshots of facebook posts or tweets as evidence.

yuga, for the benefit of those who may be facing ridiculous criminal charges for online libel, i’ll expound a bit:

screenshots, forum posts, soft copies of TOS, etc. are admissible in criminal cases. BUT, it should not be so easy to offer or present them as electronic evidence in a criminal case.

A blogger/journalist’s defense counsel can insist that such evidence cannot be offered under the e-commerce law or the rule on electronic evidence in a criminal case (because the rule on electronic evidence is not meant to govern criminal cases- it is meant to govern civil and commercial actions).

Instead, all electronic evidence in a criminal case must be authenticated under the stricter parameters of the rules of court- I.E., the persons who produced the screenshots, created or captured the preserved posts, must testify as to how exactly they did it, and show clearly that they were never tampered during the entire chain of custody. Defense counsel can even insist that the technology used to produce such evidence must be demonstrated to the court’s satisfaction before such evidence is even admitted as part of the case records.

If there is a possibility of tampering or a gap in the chain of custody, the defense can argue that the evidence should be suppressed. However, objections to evidence must be timely made. Otherwise, the person on trial loses the right to object.

I hope this is helpful to all bloggers and journalists who may come across this post! more power to you, yuga.

Is giving out an opinion through an article online may constitute libel?