Every person born alive has the right to speak or to have the freedom of speech. Now, in the technologic age that we have, the best place to exercise our freedom of speech is in the internet. You can express things you want by sharing you “Statuses”, commenting on topics and liking other’s ideas. Then comes the “beloved” R.A. 10175 a.k.a. Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. This law will have officials look at your old posts, and if they find it libelous, they can send you to prison for 12 years and you can have a fine of a million pesos. This actually takes away the freedom of speech to almost all internet users in the Philippines.
Who would want to have their sweet and peaceful life to turn into a life in martial law? This is the view of most of the internet users under this law. Everything you do will be monitored by the government. Libelous acts will get you to jail. Even if you just report something bad about the barangay captain in your place like him/her gambling in bar will get you in jail. Who did the wrong thing? Is it you, the truthful citizen or the barangay captain who might have spent a little of the funds for the barangay in playing poker or “pusoy”? That is why a lot of internet citizens or netizens are opposing this law.
Also, in one of the statements of this act, it is said that a high amount of money will be used annually for the implementation of this act. Instead of using it for this, why don’t they build more houses for the poor, schools for the uneducated, hospitals for the sick and other
Of course, not everybody is against this law especially people who were bullied or are being bullied by means of internet. This law protects them from being pushed around by others but they are only the minority.
No matter how we look at it, this law lost to the people. Rallies were held on the day of submission of this law. Majority were opposing this act and the people won. The democracy won. It was the best to remove some of the parts of this law that involved the punishment of minor offenses.