Who do we blame for this?

MANILA, Philippines - I am against the Cybercrime Law and, like most of us, I’d love to throw a cuss word or a rant peppered with “libelous” threats at the faulty legislation. But beyond the tantrum, the Cybercrime Law gives us an opportunity to reflect on ourselves and society. After all, it’s now part of pop culture.

Pop culture is Janus-faced. The side we often see is its highly elusive side: the one that makes us say popularity is temporary and trends change every single day. Its other face, the one we tend to disregard, is a timeless and nuanced story. Pop culture is a product of the mixing and mashing of trends and ideas, of arguments and counterarguments, of movers and shakers. And the Cybercrime Law is not an exception. Contrary to popular belief, the Cybercrime Law has been a long time coming. And we are now at its twilight. 

While its libel provision was inserted by one man, the bill approved by 12 of his colleagues, and finally signed into law by the President, this genius they came up with cannot be blamed solely on these 14 government officials we, um, so love and care for. It’s no accident that the bill was brought to fruition faster than you can say Freedom of Information, Reproductive Health, or a working education budget. Our country has been at it all these years. These government officials have enjoyed a status so high up that they don’t see anything wrong with creating Big Brother. Think about it: what has ever stopped them from using their wang-wang?

It’s our fault

Minus the idea (or guilt) that we elected them into office (or not), it’s really our fault for allowing these people to rule over our lives. I’m not saying there’s a problem with the system altogether; I won’t argue with John Locke and his idea of the social contract. But it’s precisely this lack of understanding of those tenets we have so carefully placed in our Constitution that makes for this metamorphosis of the government official. They have turned from public servant to an omnipotent deity who can meddle with our Facebook posts.

The sad irony with the law’s implementation is that it falls 40 years after the declaration of martial law. While we commemorate and discuss that dark period of our history, we also manage to pass a law for its modern-day counterpart. Perhaps, this is a welcome reply to the reaction circulating these days. A lot of young people actually consider Marcos as their hero, that the dictator did the right thing, and that the Philippines was better off under a totalitarian rule.

Well, if you were wishing for another martial law, then this piece of legislation might just be the answer to your prayers. Hooray for you!

Comfortable fallacy

Come to think of it, who needs an election for these government officials to curtail our freedom of speech? We do the shutting up ourselves. Whether the Cybercrime Law reaches its full potential or not, freedom of speech is a comfortable fallacy, or a paradox at most.

A day before the Cybercrime Law was implemented, John Cali Lagrimas, 15, was killed in a violent demolition in Tarlac City while many were wounded. Some of us would go on saying the informal settlers got what they deserved. Some of us would say that these protesters are nothing but scum. But whoever listened to John Cali Lagrimas’ cries to keep his home? Where’s his power of “free speech”? Does his being poor and being an informal settler strip that right away from him?

Perhaps, that’s the relationship of freedom and power. The more power we gain, the more we alter freedom’s definition. And with the Cybercrime Law’s implementation, the joke’s on us. We, the ones living in cyberspace, above the demolitions, above the ones whose freedoms we’ve limited, face a more powerful foe — the ones who have gained more from altering our freedom’s definition.

Pop culture, these trends on the Internet, your previous status message, they come and go. While flipping a middle finger at the state and the police might be fashionable these days, we have to foster a certain reflexivity so we can make sense out of it. We have to remember that society is the way it is because individuals take some form of action.

Be brave every day, my friends.

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Tweet the author @sarhentosilly.