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Proposition: Resolved that Cybercrime Law be legally implemented in the Philippines.

Good afternoon madam chair and to the members of this most august house, we in
the negative side of the house strongly believe that Cybercrime Law should not be legally
implemented in the Philippines. Republic Act No. 10175 otherwise known as Cybercrime
Prevention Act of 2012 or what we call from the negative side Cyber Martial Law
threatens our freedom of expression, although while it is true that the law does have some
good points, but its nasty parts cant be ignored.
Despite its positive objectives to regulate Internet use and get rid of unwanted
online activities and other strengths, the wide ranging Anti-Cybercrime Law still coved
several irrelevant areas, which only magnified its ambiguity and other weaknesses.
Ladies and gentlemen, as Filipinos we are known to be very talkative and
opinionated people especially in social media sites. Any kind of speech, whether it is done
on the Internet or in ordinary communication, cannot be subjected to prior restraint from
the government, unless a court allows it and just like any other law, this leaves too much
up to the interpretation. For instance, it includes libel; Under Article 353 of the Revised
Penal Code of the Philippines, libel is defined as public and malicious imputation of a
crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status or
circumstance tending to discredit or cause the dishonour or contempt of a natural or
juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.
The problem with Cybercrime Law is that it seems to take away the power of the
court and give it to the Department of Justice. The DOJ, of course, is not a court; it
belongs to the Executive Department, so theres constitutional issue already. And come
to think of it ladies and gentlemen, if this law would be legally implemented in the
Philippines then definitely it would affect so many innocent people like us.
Ladies and gentlemen the internet is a powerful venue to freely express our views,
opinions, feeling and many others. Imagine a country implementing this kind of law, and
this wont like you liking what it doesnt like. For us who uses facebook and twitter the act
of clicking Like button on Facebook or retweeting posts on twitter may be tagged as
unlawful as well by simply clicking you would be charged right away. Another thing about
this law is that this law would give government agencies the power to restrict and monitor
internet use. They can block access to any computer data which may contain information
that violates the law. It can arbitrarily shutdown a website at first glance without due
process.
The law also allows traffic data including the communications origin, destination,
route, time, date, size, duration, or type of underlying service to be monitored in real
time, and without a warrant. My contention ladies and gentlemen is that this Cybercrime
law is in a way unreasonable and it should not be legally implemented in the Philippines
because at the end of the time this law only wants to hear nice things, yes it is good to
hear those things, but how about those who happen to do bad thing are we just going to
keep quiet and act as if nothing happened?
Truly ladies and gentlemen, there is no way to prohibit someone from having the
freedom to express his or herself and we all need to intensify the fight against any form of
abridgment of our freedom of speech, both online and offline And I therefore conclude
that we, in the negative side of the house stand firm that cybercrime law should not be
legally implemented in the Philippines.


TABOR, EMEE GRACE B.
AB-POLSCI IV-A
Rebuttal speech


I am giving one point of __________________________ to my worthy opponent for assuming the need of
this law to be implemented without processing facts or data ..










I am also giving one point of argumentum ad ignorantiam to my worthy opponent for not thoroughly
grasping the nature of their favoured law.






















Ladies and gentlemen and to the members of this most august house, do we need a law which will
more likely pull us down instead of lifting us? Do we need a law which will make us instant criminals by
just posting what we feel and what we want to say on networking sites? Do we need a law which will
suppress our freedom of expression? Of course we dont!

Therefore, I close my case.