While the public, most especially media, was busy following the Corona impeachment trial, legislators were pushing measures that would undermine journalists’ work of making government officials accountable, which senator-judges declared as the major accomplishment of the just-concluded political exercise.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines alerted the media community on three legislations: Sen. Edgardo Angara’s Senate Bill 2965, An Act Protecting Individual Personal Information in Information and Communications Systems in the Government and the private sector; House Bill No. 5808, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012; and House Bill 5831 which proposes the amendment of Article 359 of R.A 3815, the Revised Penal Code.
Angara’s SB 2965 also seeks to create a national data protection commission.