Battleground Moves to the Internet
Published in Philippine Daily Inquirer
October 29, 1999
"THE SPIDER'S Web" by Conrado de Quiros (Opinion, 10/25/99) and "NGO Under
Attact" (10/26/99) by Rina David, opens up the issue of the legal rights and
wrongs of Internet use as a communication and free speech. Their columns
underline the strong reaction of authoritarian politicians and corporations that
resent the use of the internet by grass- roots dwellers to reach instantaneously
a huge tree top audiense inthe global forest of public opinion.
For nine years I wrote acolumn for the Inquirer in the belief that writing about
spiritual and social issues would contribute, in some small way, to the
reservoir of truth from which we all need to drink to strenghten our faith,
nourish our conscience and build commitment to freedom and decency.
There are some who would like to restrain the Inquirer by boycotting and
curtailing it's freedom of expression. Likewise others want to clap the internet
in chains of legal prohibition, and drag it to the dungeons of pior restraint.
Those of us who express our opinions, expose wrongdoing and appeal for justice
on the internet can be threatened with a similar fate by legal suits aimed to
intimidate and curtail the freedom of expression.
For the same reasons I wrote for the Inquirer, I now write for the worlwide
audience that seeks information onthe Internet though our website
(www.preda.org) and by e-mail to almost eleven thousand newsletter subscribers
around the world.
Mayor Benjamin de Guzman has threatened to sue us for sending him a letter of
appeal through the internet copied to our supporters. Our internet appeal was to
top what Rina David calls the Davao Death Squad from shooting youths and
harrasing minors. The mayor was upset at the worldwide reaction to the internet
appeal.
There is nothing libelous in a strong letter reminding the authorities of their
duty to investigate and stop terrible crimes. But if the mayor claims that we
are doing it to make money then he he is echoing the words of a group of foreign
pedophile supporters and protectors from Olongapo who wrote to him with such
alligations. They also put up a defamatory website in retailiation because the
PREDA center for children's right succeeded in jailing two of their members for
sexual abuse of Filipino children.
However free we all may want the internet to be, there are limits that need to
be set to curb child pornography and defamation. The innocent need protection
and the public prosecutors need education about the Internet.
In Olongapo a prosecutor dismissed our libel case against the pedophile
supporters saying that we probably hacked into thier website, uploaded the
material and libeled ourselves with self-inflicted defamation. Good grief!
Fr. Shay Cullen
Preda Center
Upper Kalaklan
Olongapo City
