I’m not a miscreant — someone who wants to cause trouble. So why am I against a law that supposedly is for the protection of those who may be hacked, or subjected to cyber-prostitution, or whose reputations may be wrecked online?
While Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 may project itself at face value to be just those things, reading its provisions coupled with understanding one’s constitutionally-guaranteed rights will reveal that OMGWTF how did that happen?!
I object to the Cybercrime Law on the grounds that it tramples on the right to speech and expression, the right to privacy of communication and correspondence, the right to due process, and the right to be secure of unreasonable searches and seizures. It violates the Constitutional rule against double jeopardy by allowing separate prosecution of the same offense under the Cybercrime Law as well as the old Revised Penal Code. It is a bill of attainder because it singles out a definite class (those who use information and communication technology such as the Internet and computer systems) and punishes that class without benefit of judicial trial by granting the Department of Justice power to block access to a website or computer system if it even looks like a cybercrime is being committed.
Additionally, the penalty for a crime committed with ICT is one degree higher than if it had been committed by traditional means, which implies that merely using ICT is an aggravating circumstance and is a bad, bad thing. I’m of the opinion that the Internet and communication technology are tools, which are neutral.
The Cybercrime Law also fails to provide any procedural safeguards and standards in constructing the Implementing Rules and Regulations, which may be changed by the agency involved in its enforcement without public consultation — ripe for abuse.
I’m grateful that my education opened my eyes to my rights under the Constitution and instilled in me the value of fighting for those rights. My training in media ethics says that journalism gives a voice to the voiceless and can be an effective tool for exposing injustices — thus, vital in a democracy.
That is why I was dismayed that this is how mainstream media (consumed by most Filipinos) is covering the fight against the Cybercrime Law. Below is a clip from the very popular showbiz show The Buzz, in which I was one of the people interviewed.
Note how this “special report” conveniently glosses over all the objections by saying we just need to give the Cybercrime Law a chance. If that’s how it’s presented to the masa media consumer, no wonder people are wondering why we’re so upset about this.
I never used to understand the allure of Foursquare. I mean, for obvious privacy and anti-stalking reasons I don’t want strangers seeing where I usually go or where I am at a particular time. Yet I still see many of my friends tweet their locations because they’ve linked their Foursquare accounts with their Twitter feeds.
So what’s the deal with Foursquare, anyway? I decided to take the plunge. Since I’m on Globe’s Blackberry Max plan, I can use any app that requires an Internet connection at no extra charge. I took my precautions by choosing not to publish anything to my social networks, and adding only those friends I trust with my location. (Odd how that shrunk my friends list down considerably.)
I started off by checking into my places of work, and noticed the Explore tab.
Foursquare on a BlackBerry 9360 (with Otter Box casing)
Clicking it revealed the Top Picks around my current location. I could also switch between Top Picks, Specials (if any nearby places were offering deals for Foursquare users), Trending (places with many Foursquare users gathered at that moment), Food, Coffee, Nightlife, Shops, Sights, A&E, and Outdoors.
Explore options
When I selected Food, I realized there were so many places around me I hadn’t yet tried. I’m the kind of person who finds one restaurant in a certain place, always goes there and always orders a specific item on the menu. I’m not the adventurous foodie type at all. So if you think about it, Foursquare’s the perfect thing to jostle me out of my comfort zone and go food-tripping. And the information on Foursquare is crowdsourced; this means regular people leave tips recommend these places and dishes, and can disagree with unrealistic and untrue tips. That’s quite unlike review websites which sometimes have dubious reputations for talking up a lackluster restaurants.
This was put to the test when I dropped by Greenbelt 5 last Wednesday and didn’t want to eat at my usual haunt *coughcoughKFCcoughcough*. So I hit Explore and was overjoyed to find a Toast Box that I didn’t know existed in the mall!
After that initial success, I started checking in at other restaurants to see what dishes had good reviews. I had a late lunch with a friend at Texas Roadhouse in Bonifacio High Street last Saturday, and before we ordered, I saw that three previous Foursquare users had left tips saying their Southwestern Cobb salad was delicious. And it was!
Next week, I’ll probably check out restaurants near here in Pasig, like Bullchef in Kapitolyo which Foursquare users say serves an amazing and filling bulalo stew. I salivate in anticipation.
Noelle De Guzman is a Globe mobile data services brand ambassador.
I can’t recall if I watched my first UAAP Cheerdance Competition live, or if my brain just thinks I did but I really watched it on TV. All I can remember is that in my first year of university, we were required by our P.E. classes to attend a number of UAAP games. Our school drums formed the beat to which we shouted our cheers as games were won and lost. That year, my alma mater placed third despite being the most unique in its approach — no canned music, just the drums.
Since then I’ve tried to make it a point to keep up with news on the yearly competition results since it’s the only high-profile one in the UAAP my school always seems to have a chance of winning. (Yes, kulelat kami sa basketball.)
So I’m super happy about this year’s results. It’s our eighth win, and second three-in-a-row. U-nibersidad ng Pilipinas!
Given the recent enactment of the Anti-Cybercrime Law (which threatens Internet freedom), I was kind of expecting some takedown notices on content posted online. But I didn’t expect that a two-year-old reblog of mine on Tumblr would warrant this kind of action:
Anti-Cybercrime Law in action?
If you’re interested in reading the supposedly libelous post, it was a reblog from another person’s Tumblr, to which I just added my own commentary, which was “Hmm. Should I hit him with my bachelor’s degree in Political Science cum laude, or my master’s degree in Media Studies – Journalism? Maybe I should just make fun of his use of quotation marks.” I was reacting to someone else’s comment on a post he made on Facebook. In no way was I the source of any comment that could be construed as libel.
So, lawyers and media practitioners out there, what are my options? I have three days daw.
UPDATE 10:04 p.m.:
UPDATE 10:30 p.m.:
UPDATE 11:31 p.m.:
I’ve screencapped the Tumblr reblog instead of linking to it from here and blotted out names and faces. The guy probably thinks it’s hurting his hireability. It really would have been better if he had asked me nicely to remove the post. However, I’m not a spiteful person; what he did was two years ago and on reviewing the original post, kinawawa sya. So I removed it from public view because I felt sorry for him, which is more than what he deserves for threatening me with legal action. But that doesn’t mean the original post doesn’t exist elsewhere and isn’t still searchable.
I’ve been many things to many people over the past few years. When I was a kid, I was the Girl with Glasses. When I graduated and entered university, I was the Girl Two Years Younger Than Everyone Else (I was accelerated, and entered UP at 15 years old).
Then I got on the internet, and it was here that I first found some semblance of control of my identity because everything required I select some sort of handle or nickname (before we started calling them “usernames”). One of the first internet rules I learned was to use a different name from my own. For a teen still finding her own voice, this was golden because I felt I could be anything online. I created a home page on Geocities and my username was “Barbie-q” or some kind of iteration on that.
It wasn’t long before I found people online and in real life with whom I shared similar interests. Back then, I was into anime and because of this subscribed to the Pinoy Otaku Mailing List. Living in that world of fantasy, I soon created and inhabited a persona I called “Doctor Megumi” after the character Takani Megumi from the anime Rurouni Kenshin. I even attempted some fanfiction under that pen name. *shudder*
As more people started using the internet and social networking sites like Friendster, Myspace, and then Facebook and Twitter grew in popularity, establishing an online identity under your real name became the new norm (although anonymous usernames still stuck around). I had also begun keeping a personal blog under my real name in hopes of creating a portfolio good enough as a jump-off point for finding writing work.
Then I started writing about fitness and active lifestyle, which started pointing me in the direction I’ve been going ever since in both the magazine articles I’ve written, and the television appearances I’ve had. Some people still recognize me from my ShopTV Live guesting demonstrating products like this. *shudder*
But never has anything grown to define me as much as my latest identity “Kikay Runner”. It started when I wrote a few blog entries about starting to run and join races. One of my friends said I was the next Bull Runner, referring to an already-established running blogger. I demurred, saying, “Hindi naman. Kikay Runner lang.” I didn’t think anything of it back then; the term was just a brain fart.
But when I split off my running-related posts into its own blog and called it Kikay Runner, it really took off. It was easy to remember and juxtaposed mental images of a feminine woman in a hardcore sport. And I guess I’ve grown to become that name, too — even as I invested in trademarking it for fear that TV networks would use it on one of their young stars to capitalize on the growing popularity of running.
These days when people call out to me I can tell when I got to know them. I’m “Noelle” to most long-time buddies from the blogging world, “Megumi-chan” to my anime friends, and “Kikay” to my acquaintances in the running community. And some people who know me by “Kikay” now don’t even know my real name. But that’s all right. My name is Noelle… but I’m Kikay, too.
