De Lima snubs Angara’s suspension call

From: inquirer.net

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima turned down the proposal of Sen. Edgardo Angara to suspend the implementation of a provision of the Cybercrime Prevention Act which empowers her to block or restrict access to websites that violate the new law.

De Lima said the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the law would “clarify” that provision.

Angara acknowledged having reservations about Section 19 of the Act. Which authorizes the Justice secretary to block access to websites that commit child pornography and other crimes spelled out in the new law.

“Personally, I would recommend that we ask the secretary of justice when promulgating the rules and regulations to suspend the exercise of this power in the meantime before the Supreme Court decides on this particular issue or the Congress passes the amendatory law,” he added.

The DOJ is set to hold a multisectoral forum on Oct. 9 to address the concerns of various sectors about the law and to get inputs before the agency,  Department of the Interior and Local Government, and Department of Science and Technology come out with the IRR.

However, a group of bloggers that asked the Supreme Court to nullify provisions of the cybercrime law for being unconstitutional said that “sugarcoating” the law through its IRR was not enough.

“However good the intentions of President Aquino, his spokespersons and Secretary De Lima are in coming out with the IRR, those cannot change this bad law. It cannot change an evil law,” said Anthony Ian Cruz, owner of the tech and political blog tonyocruz.com. ###