CIT SPHERE

REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8792 :

An Act Promoting The Use Of Electronic Commercial and Non-Commercial Transactions, Penalties for Unlawful Use Thereof and Other Purposes.

The Philippines, despite being considered as an underdeveloped nation, is now being considered as a main source of information technology practitioners around the world. The sudden surge of interest of Filipinos, especially the youths, in information technology started with the introduction of affordable cellular phones, and later, the emergence of the World Wide Web (www). Computer schools, colleges and universities offering courses in computer science, information technology, and other computer related courses has since multiplied not only in Metro Manila but in the provinces as well. This sudden surge of interest in information technology has introduced new businesses and opportunities for growth, but in the process, also introduced new kinds of problems which are rather complex, making business transactions using these new technologies risky because of reliability and security issues. Before the enactment of the Republic Act 8792, there exist no law regarding electronic crimes and fraud. The government finds no appropriate law that addresses crimes committed electronically. Lately, The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) was created to conduct studies on how ICT could be maximized and to suggest changes into ICT curriculum through the Commission on Higher Education. This commission is currently chaired by Monchito Ibrahim.

The objectives of the Act are well defined and robust, making sure that the authenticity of data being transferred is secured, In fact, in my opinion, the law is more than sufficient enough to facilitate electronic commerce in the Philippines. The problems lie in the technology, and making this technology affordable. Another problem that is obvious is the difficulty of implementing the law since most of the lawyers haven’t really specializes on electronic laws.

The government, through the ZTE deal, exerted efforts in making computer and communications technology more affordable and accessible by proposing a nationwide broadband network that would connect all the government offices and schools in the Philippines. The proposal is a first step in realizing this dream but gets smeared by graft and corruption even before the project got started.

Electronic transactions in the government jump started through the computerization of the National Statistics Office (NSO), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the Supreme Court, and lately, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). Lagging behind in this computerization effort is the education sector, since most of the schools in the country are located in far flung places not reached by telephone services, thus, deprived them of the use of the internet.

This Act promotes paperless transactions in the private and government sectors which facilitates faster, less bureaucratic dealings in different government offices. The opportunities are limitless, and so are the challenges of making sure that documents are authenticated. The law provides numerous safeguards (e.g. electronic signature), which in theory are good, but in practice, are quite difficult to implement. Safeguarding the authenticity of documents would be difficult to accomplish in a public network system like the internet. The law seemed not conclusive on most provisions, making interpretations difficult, making electronic documents less credible. I find it hard to justify the authenticity of electronic documents in court.

With regards to software piracy, companies like Microsoft finds it impossible to safeguard their products against piracy once they are deployed. The only way they would track pirated Microsoft software is when computers with illegal copies of their software were updated on the internet. But on contrary, Microsoft included a facility in their products, the option of disabling automatic updates. In fact most private individuals and even companies used pirated software.

This act safeguards the intellectual properties of individuals or companies who exerted efforts and money to develop products. The government is not too keen on enforcing the law because our economy is not yet too dependent on it. Furthermore, the Philippines is not a producer of software products. We merely buy software designed and developed by other nations, thus, we tend to not to keen on protecting intellectual properties.

In conclusion, the law is broad but lacks specifics details regarding assurance of authenticity and security of information, and the assurance of reliability to safely and reliable implement this law.