Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, chair of the senate committee on justice, has come out against the decriminalization of libel, arguing that this was the only remedy of individuals who felt maligned by others.
While some of his colleagues called for decriminalization, or the realignment of penalties to civil fines, Pimentel pushed for the status quo, that is, for libel to be retained as a criminal offense with prison penalties as defined in the Revised Penal Code and the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
“If we decriminalize it, more people would feel they’re victims of injustice because they’ve been libeled, and they don’t have a remedy,” he told reporters on Thursday afternoon. “We don’t want people to take the law into their hands because of an inefficient justice system,” he said.
He maintained that jail terms prescribed in current libel laws were a “deterrent” against “indiscriminate libeling.”
Yet Pimentel also warned that the consequence of decriminalization would in fact be the imposition of stiffer penalties.
“It’s really a policy decision if we decriminalize libel. Then the consequence is heavy fines. Those fines are like criminal punishment. It’s a policy decision. Either way, it can be decriminalized or the criminal nature can be retained,” he said.
On the other hand, Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Alan Peter Cayetano, Francis Escudero, Edgardo Angara and Teofisto Guingona III called for the decriminalization of libel, particularly after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of libel in the cybercrime law.
Lawmakers in favor of decriminalization argued that criminal libel laws contravened the constitutional provision on the freedom of expression. TJ Burgonio, and Allan Nawal and Charlie Señase, Inquirer
Mindanao
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