The dawn of the new millennium has brought tremendous changes in global perspectives. The concept of unknown horizons and unexplored world terrains vanished. In a sense the huge world, which we thought was so vast that one cannot travel from one end to the other without spending one’s generation, shrank. Societies grew from interNational to isolated populace where each spends most of his time sitting in front of a computer. With the advent of such revolution the concept of Cyberspace was born and with it, the lives of the people and how they interact with one another correspondingly and dramatically changed.
Almost every kind of data may be found in the Cyberspace and with the advent of the Internet, access to them became a matter of seconds. As virtual as the Cyberspace may seem, what may be found in them are in straight graphical replica of what is real. The system of data access became revolutionized and from the macro schemes of things to the crudest representations of information, even information and on-line interaction between people became possible.
The concepts of on-line communication through the Internet, use of interactive cameras, blogs, E-mails, Youtube, on-line posts, and other related terms were born and with it the way societies interact and even behave changed. Human interactions and some of the traditional way people deal with other people in the society even the way stalking and bullying greatly changed.
Throughout the years stalking and bullying have been exhibited in almost all kinds of environment but a bulk of such cases especially bullying usually happen in schools and the perpetrators are normally children from pre-school to high school. Stalking on the other hand does not have an exact environment or perpetrator age-group because of its process which involves a sequence of events and is committed from anywhere from the point from where the victim reside up to their places of study, work, recreation, etc.
Article II Section 5 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states that, “the maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life, liberty, and property, and the promotion of the general welfare are essential for the enjoyment by all people of the blessings of democracy.” One of the avowed policy of the government is the promotion of the general welfare of the people and in order to enjoy peace and order means curbing untoward behavior which essentially disrupts social harmony. As the act of bullying usually transpire among children, it is hard to impose punitive justice against them. As the effect of bullying manifest in different forms, the more evident manifestation by which the law may interfere is when physical assault was committed. However, since the perpetrators are mostly children under the age of majority, the restorative form of justice embodied in Republic Act 9344 or the Juvenile Justice Law i semployed wherein child offenders are subjected to intervention program and is brought to child caring institutions in the hope of reintegrating him in the society.
Stalking on the other hand, due to the circumstances by which it was committed, do not have an exact enabling law by which it is punished. Stalking involves actions wherein the perpetrator or stalker would follow the activities of the victim and is normally tagged as following another person’s movement from one place to another. At most, the victim may avail of the provisions under Article 202 (4) and Article 287 of the Revised Penal Code. Under Article 202 (4) of the Revised Penal Code, any person who, not being included in the provisions of other articles in this Code, shall be found loitering in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable causes and who shall be found guilty thereof shall be punished by arresto menor or a fine not exceeding 200 pesos, and in case of recidivism, by arresto mayor in its medium period to prision correctional in its medium period or a fine ranging from 200 to 2,000 pesos, or both, in the discretion of the court. Article 287 of the same punishing unjust vexation by arresto menor or a fine ranging from 5 to 200 pesos, or both. The duration of such penalties, which ranges from one month and one day to six months in case of arresto mayor and one day to thirty days in case of arresto menor, and the meager fines by which the offenses are punished cannot surpass the psychological trauma and other effects of such negative behaviors.
yber stalking is generally defined as the use of Internet or other related means to stalk someone. It has been scholarly defined as the use of information and communications technology, particularly the Internet, by an individual or group of individuals, to harass another individual, group, or organization. It involves false accusations, monitoring, the transmission of threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sexual purposes, and gathering information for harassment purposes (Bocij 2004).
The effect upon the individual who fall as victim to such disruptive behavior ranges from mild psychological stress to anxiety and paranoia. Perpetrators usually use the flexibility of the Internet to obtain information about the victim by tracing their IP address thereby accessing their home, office, or school address. It may also come in a form wherein an individual or group of individuals or, in case of syndicated cyber crimes, organizations use blog sites, e-mails, social networking sites such as Friendster, Twitter, Facebook, Tagged, and the likes to discredit an individual or organization. It is accompanied by a malicious intent to damage one’s reputation by sending malicious and false accusations against them for the purpose of discrediting their victims.
With on-line posts which can be both in written and visual communication, one may be able to discredit or simply harass another by uploading, in the case of visual communication, pictures, messages, video recording involving another person, group of persons or organization in the Youtube or other similar sites. Threats are also sent through e-mails and other similar form of internet communication. Another popular way by which cyber stalking transpire is by monitoring their private activities using high-end communication gadgets ran by the internet and other form of information technology tools. Trained and highly technical skilled individuals may tap upon streetlights, building cameras and CCTVs to follow one’s movement. Without any legitimate purpose, they seemingly spy upon another’s activity without any clear design other than to harass them.
At present, the Philippines has no explicit legilation on cyber stalking or cyber bullying. Nevertheless using the aforementioned definition of cyber staking petaining to the involvement of false accusations, transmission of threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, certain acts could be subsued in the acts prohibited under the Republic Act No. 8792, An Act Providing for the Recognition and Use of Electronic Commercial and non-comercial Transactions and Documents,Penalties for Unlawful Use Thereof and for other Purpose or the E-Commerce Act, to wit:
SEC. 33. Penalties. - The following Acts shall be penalized by fine and/or imprisonment, as follows:
1. Hacking or cracking which refers to unauthorized access into or interference in a computer system/server or information and communication system; or any access in order to corrupt, alter, steal, or destroy using a computer or other similar information and communication devices, without the knowledge and consent of the owner of the computer or information and communications system, including theintroduction of computer viruses and the like, resulting in the corruption,destruction, alteration, theft or loss of electronic data messages or electronic document shall be punished by a minimum fine of one hundredthousand pesos (P100,000.00) and a maximum commensurate to thedamage incurred and a mandatory imprisonment of six (6) months tothree (3) years.
It is apparent that the above-mentioned law only provides penalties to specfic acts done to promote cyber stalking. It only subsued the tip of the gamut of cyber stalking. The danger that is posed by cyber bullying and cyber stalking has more far-fetching residues and ripples upon social peace and order. For someone to haunt another’s peace of mind debases morality and effectively undermine trust and confidence in the social forces that is supposed to safeguard people’s welfare against social harms.
Despite the lack of clear cut legislation designed to curb cyber stalking and cyber bullying, there are current efforts recognizing the dangers that these negative practices bring upon an individual or group of individuals in a society. In April 2009, Senator Juan Ponce Enrile filed Senate Bill No. 3177 entitled An Act Defining Cybercrime, providing for the prevention, supression and imposition of penalties and for other purposes. The Bill recognizes the stark advantage of the internet as it is nowadays a necessity and a tool for development and efficiency. However it also recognizes the growing criminal perpetrators using the internet in carrying out their illegal activities. The Bill seeks to define what consitutes cybercrime and has mentioned in passing cyber stalking as an emerging trend espousing safer medium to stalk someone as this will not require physical presence when committing the misdeed and would only require an internet capable computer system. In the said proposed law however, cyber stalking and cyber bullying were not extensively mentioned as one of the cybercrimes needed to be addressed. It specifically tackled child pornography using the internet as well as Internet espionage and similar scenarios.
It is important to understand however, that cyber stalking and cyber bullying are relatively new phenomenon in the country. This is the reason why there are no laws specifically pertaining thereto as of the present time. The E-Commerce law may be used to encompass other related activities but the scope of the said law is not comprehensive enough to include specific crimes of cyber stalking and cyber bullying. Despite several proposed enactments and resolutions by the Legislative arm of the government, there is still a need to concretize specific enabling laws that will establish legal grounds for singling out acts of cyber stalking and cyber bullying and penalizing the same. Without a specific law to criminalize such acts, aggrieved parties may be left with no other recourse but to file for civil damages using the general law on human relations enshrined under Article 19 of the Civil Code of the Philippines which aptly states that:
Article 19. Every person must, in the exercise of his rights and in the performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone his due and observe honesty and good faith.
In the absence of such enabling law to criminalize such acts and provide penalties for the commission of such, the victim may only claim civil damages by way of filing cases on the basis of the above-mentioned provision. The perpetrator may pay the indemnity but may get away scott-free from the acts which he or she committed. The penalty provided by existing law do not commensurate to the damage and injury that such acts produce.
The vastness of uncertainty and abyss in the old world has diminished. Such social state subjects all people from cyber stalking and cyber bullying and exposes them to danger and risk of undermining their overall well-being. To appeal that perpetrators of such acts should be punished in a more severe manner cannot hold ground for under the law in order to fully prosecute individuals committing such acts. There must be a legal basis whereby courts may be guided as to what kind of acts, degree of severity, and the corresponding penalties each and every defined act therein will be penalized. As there is no such law such appeal should fail. As the famous criminal law principle aptly provide “there is no crime when there is no law punishing it” and cyber stalking and cyber bullying however severe and damaging their impacts would be cannot be punished unless there is specific legal provision stating otherwise.
