The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines urges the authors of House Bill No. 4807 (also known as An Act to Provide Protection From Personal Intrusion for Commercial Purposes) to withdraw their proposed law; and, should the authors refuse to do so, we call on the rest of the members of the House of Representatives to vote it down.
While we concede that the measure may have been filed with all the best intentions in mind, the fact is it poses an all too real threat not only to the freedom of the press but also to our citizen’s right to free expression.
The bill’s avowed aim: to “curb acts of trespassing and other intrusions on personal privacy committed by any person in order to capture visual or sound impressions of an individual, with intent to gain or profit.” This is overly broad as are the provisions that list the ways by which violations may be committed.
We agree that people are entitled to privacy and, in fact, the Constitution guarantees as much, in all matters that are personal and have nothing to do with the public interest. But the measure’s intent is so broad that, once it becomes law, the criminal and the corrupt are likely to use it as another tool to elude accountability.
That the proposed law seeks to punish even “the fact that no visual image, sound recording or other physical impression of a person was actually sold for gain or profit,” makes it even more insidious.
We are sure that the authors of the bill know only too well that media outfits are essentially “for profit” enterprises. But institutional media aside, the measure could end up stifling citizen journalism and dissuade the public from even simply taking pictures or videos for personal pleasure.
In an era where technology is quickly breaking down the obstacles that hamper free expression and the flow of information, which are the bedrock of democracy, HB 4807 would rather have us return to the Dark Ages and, worse, provide a weapon of suppression and repression.
While at it, we are equally disturbed by how the bill has swiftly made its way through the legislative mill—it was approved on second reading without any of the sectors its passage would impact on being informed, much less invited to discuss its implications.
The authors of the bill and the House as a whole would do the nation and the Filipino people a truly great service by discarding this bill and any similar legislation, and instead pouring all their energies into passing and
enacting the freedom of information bill.
—ROWENA C. PARAAN, chair,
National Union of Journalists
of the Philippines,
nujphil@gmail.com