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[av_heading heading=’ Fact check debunks ‘anti-fake news law’ report’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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Monday, September 4, 2017
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MANILA – A news report on Philstar.com that said President Rodrigo Duterte signed on Aug. 29 a new law criminalizing fake news went viral on social media last week.
But a fact check done by media organization VERA Files debunked the Sept. 1 online report “Spreading fake news now a crime.”
Republic Act 10951 merely amended the Revised Penal Code to update outdated penalties to match their 2017 monetary equivalents, VERA Files quoted Sen. Franklin Drilon, author of the law, as saying.
False news is already punishable under the Revised Penal Code, which was passed in 1930. “We can categorically state that the increase in fines had nothing to do with the rise of fake news,” Drilon told VERA Files.
“President Duterte signed into law this week Republic Act 10951, which includes a provision imposing penalties on a person found guilty of spreading fake news that might affect public order,” the Philstar.com report read.
“Amid the prevalence of false news in the country and elsewhere, Duterte signed the law that amended the 87-year-old Revised Penal Code and also placed penalties on unlawful use of publication and unlawful utterances,” it added.
Philstar.com attributed the fake news angle to Article 154 of the Code, which sanctions the “unlawful use of means of publication and unlawful utterances.”
The Article also punishes “any person who by means of printing lithography or any other means of publication shall publish or cause to be published as news any false news which may endanger the public order or cause damage to the interest or credit of the State.”
The law was not focused on false news as it covered all 99 crimes with monetary penalties in the Revised Penal Code, Drilon told VERA Files.
VERA Files reported that the new law raised the penalty range for Article 154 to P40,000-P200,000, in addition to a jail term of up to six months, from P200-P1,000 in 1930.
Moreover, Atty. Marlon Anthony Tonson of the Philippine Internet Freedom Alliance told VERA Files the new law refers only to the adjustment of fines and not the creation of a brand-new felony.
“Defining a new crime under the (Revised Penal Code) can only be done in a separate piece of legislation made specifically for that purpose,” VERA Files quoted Tonson as saying in a text message./PN
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