Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago rallied netizens against what she described as “erroneous” decision of the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of online libel.
Santiago said a motion for reconsideration could be filed against online libel or the Senate could pass a new Anti-Cybercrime measure that will in effect overturn the SC’s decision. Either way, the senator vowed to give her full support to the new measure.
“I humbly submit that the Supreme Court ruling on this particular provision is erroneous and I call on all netizens to magnify all our efforts and to speed it up as soon as possible so that we can either file a motion for reconsideration with respect to this particular libel provision or we can speed it up here in the Senate on that new law that I have filed from crowdsourcing,’ she said at a press conference in the Senate.
Santiago lamented that the Supreme Court is treating social media “as if it were just a scion or a successor or just another classification of traditional media.”
Santiago also questioned the practicality of imposing criminal liability for online libel, citing the already populated prisons in the country.
“It will add to the burgeoning prison population of this country. We are spending taxpayers’ money to sustain these prisoners and then you add up more people to populate the prisons because of libel?” she asked.
“You have this question of practicality. Is it practical? How many people are you sending, how many people are using the Internet every day, day-to-day?” she further asked.
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