FOR PRESS FREEDOM AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION:
OPPOSE HB 5835 AND SB 2965
Certain members of the 15th Congress apparently have no
knowledge of, or have chosen to ignore, the fact that freedom of information is
a human right, and that
It would not matter were these individuals not charged with
the task of legislation. The fact that
they are, together with their antipathy to freedom of information and a free
press, constitutes a mix lethal for free expression and freedom of information
in the Philippines.
Two bills, one in the initial stages of the legislative
process, and the other on the brink of approval by both houses of Congress, are
illustrative.
In the House of Representatives, Congressman Lord Allan Jay
Velasco of Marinduque has filed several bills, including House Bill (HB) 5835
which would increase the fine for each count of libel.
Velasco notes that the Revised Penal Code provisions on
libel are 82 years old and are outmoded. Indeed they are—but in the sense that
the penalties they mandate, including imprisonment, are antithetical not only
to press freedom but also to the democratic need of citizens for information on
matters of public interest. Rather than increase the penalties for libel, an
enterprise that can only be described as retrogressive, Velasco’s energies are
better spent decriminalizing it.
Senate Bill (SB) 2965, the reconciled version of three House
and Senate bills now entitled “The Data
Privacy Act”, would create a National Privacy Commission with the power to
monitor the processing of personal information in all forms and media of
communication, to halt the process in the name of privacy and national
security, and to penalize violators, including private entities, government
officials and agencies as well as the
media, for obtaining, or causing the release or publication of, “personal information”.
Section 31 mandates that “The penalty of imprisonment
ranging from two (2) years and four (4) months to five (5) years and a fine not
less than Five Hundred Thousand Pesos (Php 500,000.00) but not more than Two
Million Pesos (Php 2,000,000,000.00) shall be imposed in case of a breach of
confidentiality where such breach has resulted in the information being
published or reported by media. In this case, the responsible reporter, writer,
president, publisher, manager and editor-in-chief shall be liable under this
Act.”
SB 2965 defines
“personal information” as “any
information whether recorded in a material form or not, from which the identity
of an individual is apparent or can be reasonably and ascertained by the entity
holding the information, or when put together with other information would
identify an individual.” The definition
would therefore include information vital to the imperatives of transparency
and accountability in both government and those sectors of the private sector
whose work has a bearing on public interest. SB 2965 is also contrary to the
Freedom of Information (FOI) bill that has been submitted to the Congressional
Committees on Public Information.
Not only media and journalists’ organizations must oppose SB
2965 and HB 5835. Human rights organizations
and accountability and transparency watch groups—every organization concerned
with freedom of information, government accountability and with the right not
only to disseminate but also to receive information-- must unite in preventing
these and similar bills from passing the legislative mill, which, in contrast
to the speed with which it has processed SB 2965, has failed to act on the FOI
bill despite the painstaking efforts of its stakeholders, which include no less
than the free press, free expression groups, and the entire Philippine
citizenry.