Afflictive

The community of legal professionals is astir over information the Supreme Court may toy with the prescriptive period for cyber libel. If the Court does that, it will conveniently take off the hook an online news outfit that was adjudged guilty of cyber liber ina case filed against the editor and reporter of this outfit by an aggrieved businessman.

- ALEX MAGNO

There has been intensive debate about the law on cyber libel. Some think this law is too severe, inflicting on freedom of expression.

Ordinary libel is penalized by the Revised Penal Code with prision correccional which involves minimum and medium sentences of six months and one day to four years and two months. RA 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act increased the penalty for cyber libel by one degree to prision mayor involving imprisonment of from four years, two months and one day to 12 years.

Although ordinary libel and cyber libel are the same offense, except that the latter was committed with the use of digital technology, Congress provided a stiffer penalty. The prescribed penalty is clearly afflictive.

Our legislators argued there was a “need to protect and safeguard the integrity of computer and telecommunications systems, networks and databases and the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information stored therein, from all forms of misuse, abuse and illegal access by making punishable under the law such conduct or conducts. In this light, the State shall adopt sufficient powers to effectively prevent and combat such offenses by facilitating their detection, investigation and prosecution.”

In a word, cyber libel is seen as a more pernicious variant of the same crime. This is because the pernicious act continues to live on in cyberspace for eternity. The criminal claims are repeated each time the file is opened. The victim suffers the trauma over and over again.