Philippines: Senate President Wants Law to Regulate Blogs · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Philippine Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile admitted that he doesn’t know anything about blogs and blogging but he still proposed a law to regulate blogs after one of his colleagues in the senate complained of being a victim of cyber bullying. Many people think it is an attempt to restrict online freedom in the country.
Shades of Gray reminds the senator to focus on other issues:
Here's a good suggestion senator, instead of proposing an ANTI-BLOGGING law why not push for an anti-plagiarism law and while you are at it how about developing a good code of conduct and ethics too?
Philippine Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. Photo from Wikipedia
Bong Mendoza asks if it’s realisticto regulate political blogs:
How about political blogs? How do you regulate them? Should they be regulated in the first place? Blogs are covered by the constitutional provision on free speech. Aren’t there enough laws that can regulate blogs like libel? If a blogger advocates the overthrow of government, he could be charged with sedition or rebellion? Of course, the blogger enjoys the anonymity of cyberspace. Investigators, however, can trace his IP address(es).
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile wades in and confesses he is Internet-illiterate. He does not know what blogs are. He thought they were slogans. He does not have a blog of his own. Yet he readily sees the need to pass a law that will regulate blogs.
If such a law will be passed, we will be victimized anew. We will probably be the first country that will have a blog regulation law initiated by senatorial pique
Cyber crimes, not blogs, should be monitored according to Sassy Lawyer:
I don’t know how to explain it anymore. Creativity on the internet grew because it was allowed to grow at its own pace. Without intervention. But that’s not their concern, is it?… It isn’t blogs that need watching, it is the commission of cyber crimes. I get plagiarized almost everyday, sometimes, even by major dailies (Bulletin, case in point). And I fight tooth and nail to get plagiarists’ websites shut down or, at the very least, have the stolen materials taken down from their sites. But how do people who have no experience with what it’s like even begin to comprehend?
Mula Sa Pilipinas equates the blogging bill with control of mass media:
Law on blogging? looks like its Martial Law all over again: “control of mass media”.
Anti-blogging bill- is that the most you can come out with? Curtailling our right to voice out whatever we are feeling and thinking on how the three branches of the government are managing the country? You could do more if you will humble yourself and instead of that idiotic antiblogging bill- you will introduce amendments in our antiquated Revised Penal Code
Senate President Enrile was one of the implementers of martial law in the country between 1972 to 1981.
The Vincenton Post’s message to senators: “Leave the Internet and blog society alone!”
It appears that the country’s statist lawmakers collectively agree on one thing: the proposal to put the Internet, not just blogging and other social network activities, under state control.
I strongly reject the Reproductive Health bill for its fascistic provisions and intrusiveness. But this one… this proposal to regulate NOT just blogging but the entire Internet in the Philippines is just unspeakable.
Let the Internet be a nation or country of itself!
Leave the Internet and blog society alone!
Enrile’s idea of a blog law came out after Senator Tito Sotto accused local internet users of harassing him with regard to his opposition to the controversial Reproductive Health bill. Sotto was also responding to allegations that he plagiarized an American blogger when he delivered a speech last month about the dangers of artificial contraceptives.
stuart santiago asserts that it is Sotto who has been harassing his critics:
sotto is the one who’s being aggressive, lashing out at us from the senate on high, from a position of power. sotto is the the one who is assaulting and harassing us verbally from that privileged podium, accusing us of malice and, even, of attacking him for the money
what sotto really wants is for all of us to shut up, stop ganging up on him.