{"id":156857,"date":"2018-03-16T04:20:55","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T08:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=156857"},"modified":"2018-03-16T04:20:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T08:20:55","slug":"law-on-fake-news-singling-out-govt-workers-unconstitutional-roque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/03\/16\/law-on-fake-news-singling-out-govt-workers-unconstitutional-roque\/","title":{"rendered":"Law on fake news singling out gov\u2019t workers unconstitutional : Roque"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Roque,<\/a>
(PCOO photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Thursday said that a proposed law by Senator Grace Poe seeking to bar government employees from spreading fake news is unconstitutional, saying any law penalizing fake news should not be discriminatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to penalize fake news, who will judge what is fake news and what is news? Because the current framework right now, it\u2019s the public that should be allowed to decide what is true from what is false,\u201d Roque said during the continuation of the hearing of the Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media that Poe chairs.<\/p>\n

The Palace official said that it is in his personal view that any law penalizing fake news \u201cenjoys the presumption of unconstitutionality\u201d and that it might be void for vagueness because nobody can say for certain what is truth from wat is false, which is especially true in the realm of international politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cMadam chair, I\u2019ve been a victim of fake news. It comes with the territory. And we can only hope that because people were given by God the ability to discern what is true and what is false, its ultimately the public and the free market place of idea that should adjudge what the truth is and that should put ultimately the penalty on purveyors of fake news,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

But Poe said that she is not proposing a new law since there is an existing law, the Revised Penal Code that already criminalizes misinformation or fake news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure you believe to yourself that although there\u2019s a free market of ideas, we have to endeavor to always be responsible in ferreting out the truth. Do you agree sir?\u201d Poe asked.<\/p>\n

Roque answered \u201cyes\u201d but asserted that the proposed law \u201cis additionally possibly infringing on equal protection because we are in effect singling out government employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Poe argued that her proposal \u201capplies to all\u201d except that government officials and employees are \u201cheld to a higher standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pointed out that unlike ordinary citizens, government employees are required to submit statement of liabilities and net worth and they can also be charged with graft and plunder.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there are certain things that are expected of us because we\u2019ve waived that certain right because we are serving the people and we have to be able to be transparent, to be held to a higher standard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For her part, lawyer Trixie Angeles said that social media accountability is already tilted against government employees and officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith changing media platforms, bumibilis ang information, bumibilis ang ability natin to manipulate that information and there is increasing animosity (With the changing media platforms, information is getting faster and so does our ability to manipulate that information and there is increasing animosity),\u201d Angeles said.<\/p>\n

She said while there were laws on libel, the problem was bridging the gap between law enforcement and the crime itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody libels me on Facebook and I want to file against him\/her, I can\u2019t because I don\u2019t have an address or it\u2019s a fake account. Even if it\u2019s somebody I do know, I can\u2019t locate them or they are located at a different jurisdiction. So I have no recourse,\u201d Angeles said.<\/p>\n

She said that the primary concern on both parties \u2013 the administration and the opposition \u2013 \u201cthe question is that what do we do when somebody does us wrong and that wrong constitutes particular speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the public officers are the least of our concerns because we can bridge the gap very easily. The problem is the rest of the public,\u201d Angeles said.<\/p>\n

She said that since the internet is still considered such a \u201cwild, wild West,\u201d the ability to be able to enforce rules is determined largely by the platform like Facebook and Twitter among others.<\/p>\n

Any actions to find the address of an offensive speech from a social media account, she said would also have to contend with the Data Privacy Act.<\/p>\n

She cited the case of Thinking Pinoy, a known pro-administration blogger who was sued under the said law by just gathering information that is readily available on the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe enforcement of these particular laws is suddenly entered into vagueness. What we\u2019re saying here is that this is a new area. We don\u2019t know what we are doing for most of the part when it comes to enforcement of the laws,\u201d Angeles said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Thursday said that a proposed law by Senator Grace Poe seeking to bar government …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":151510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[3662,15359],"class_list":["post-156857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","tag-grace-poe","tag-harry-roque","mauthors-jose-cielito-reganit","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}