cyber say what now?

so netizens are protesting the cyber crime law. i dont think we can blame most of the senators who signed it for such blunder (meaning there's a couple or maybe a single senator that can be held accountable for it). i mean, when you review a bill, its not as simple as just reading it (and im going to assume that our legislators involved in it had no ulterior motives in its passage). without going into the behind the scenes part, sometimes you ask the authors why the bill needs to be passed and by the time they read it, some of their minds have been conditioned the same way a salesperson conditions the mind of a buyer. you tend to miss some details, details that the salesperson wants the buyer not to notice. im not trying to protect the lapse made by the senators, im just saying we dont live in an ideal world and its not as simple as most people think. and this is already a very simplified version on how a draft bill is considered and reviewed in an ideally realistic setting.

im against the cyber crime law for the simple reason that it is prone to abuse and gives the unconstitutional license to abridge freedom of expression and free speech (so the law itself isnt as bad as it looks, if the State wont abuse its provisions. but like im going to discuss, its very unlikely that the law wont be abused). i think this is what the senators missed. we dont live in an ideal world. much as they want to "regulate", if not "supress" abusive use of the freedom of expression (like any freedom given by the Constitution, there's a limitation), the law, unfortunately, makes it possible for the "regulator" or the State to abuse the law as well. herein lies my problem with it. as Friedrich Engels said "some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are more criminal". if only there's an assurance that the law wont be abused, the law itself can achieve its ends without trampling on the citizens' constitutionally given freedoms. unfortunately, with the current state of the law, the government cannot give such assurance. sure no law is perfect, but not because no law is perfect means we arent going to strive to make it better. thats why amendments can be made. to make it adapt to the changing socio-political and economic environment. i think what pissed off the netizens is that this law is so imperfect that obvious amendments could have been done before its passage.

in a completely unrelated note, one senator is saying that the provisions on libel is needed because of the abusive conduct of netizens. im sorry but ive been receiving such "abusive conduct" since grade school from my grade school teachers during class, with manifest malicious intent, yet that didnt bother me for the simple reason that im not insecure or gosh darn sensitive. ive been called names, insulted without much provocation and all i did was prove them wrong. i didnt cry about it. i didnt whine about it. i didnt ask anyone to shut them people up. why? because i was mature enough, at the age of 9, to handle criticism, whether baseless or not. you make your own reputation. other people wont be able to tarnish your reputation if you are a well-respected person. people will defend you, will act on your behalf, if you are a person worth protecting. now, if you cant handle people calling you names, you must really think of yourself as someone so high and mighty with a god-complex. you dont demand respect. you earn it.