MANILA: Philippines Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended the country's controversial Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The suspension will be for 120 days in order to allow the government to look again at the law that has made local and international waves over the past week. Although the government argues the new law will make the Internet safer for users, critics have argued that the law gives the government too much power, and puts Internet users at risk of jail time for performing common, non-harmful Internet activities, such as sharing tweets. Women's rights activists said they were pleased with the law's crackdown on sex sites and online “cyber sex.” The move has seen much optimism in the country as women say it will help reduce sexual crimes against women. “We have seen how the sexualization of women in Asia has also been correlated with the rising number of sexual violence against women, so this is a positive move by the government," said social worker Manuela Tipini. She told Bikyamasr.com that in recent years, she has received numerous women who have been beaten up by their partners “because they refused to do acts the men had seen on the Internet or in films. “We need to change the perception of women in this country and the region," she added. According to the government definition, cybersex includes women, or “cam girls" who chat and perform sexual acts on webcams or the Internet for clients. The Philippines government argued that too often under-age girls are performing the acts online and this is in violation to basic human rights law. Anyone breaking the law faces a fine of 250,000 Philippine pesos ($6,000; £3,700) and a jail term of up to 6 months. President Benigno Aquino III signed the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 into law on September 12, 2012. The law's criminal penalties for online libel and other restrictions are a serious threat to free expression in the Philippines. Several legal cases have been filed in the Philippines Supreme Court, including for the law to be declared unconstitutional because it violates guarantees to free expression contained in the Philippines constitution and human rights treaties ratified by the Philippines. “The cybercrime law needs to be repealed or replaced," said Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Asia director. “It violates Filipinos' rights to free expression and it is wholly incompatible with the Philippine government's obligations under international law." The new law defines several new acts of “cybercrime." Among the acts prohibited are “cybersex," online child pornography, illegal access to computer systems or hacking, online identity theft, and spamming. A section on libel specifies that criminal libel, already detailed in article 355 of the Philippines Revised Penal Code, will now apply to acts “committed through a computer system or any other similar means which may be devised in the future." The new law drastically increases the penalty for computer-related libel, with the minimum punishment raised twelve-fold, from six months to six years. The maximum punishment is doubled from six to twelve years in prison.
