The right to privacy of celebrities Maris Racal and Anthony Jennings must be respected amid the alleged cheating incident that went viral on social media, according to a lawyer.
The love team’s issue broke out after Jenning’s former partner Jamela Villanueva posted a series of screenshots of alleged private messages between him and Racal.
Lawyer Jesus Falcis, however, has since said in a social media post that “even cheaters have human rights.”
“Cheating is bad. But so is misogyny, enabled by violating the right to privacy. Victims have human rights. But vindicating your rights should not make more victims,” Falcis said.
“Even if you were the victim of cheating, by posting screenshots of any alleged affair, not only are you exposing yourself to cyberlibel charges but also to charges for violating data privacy — which is punishable by stiffer and harsher penalties than cyberlibel,” he added.
The lawyer explained that although the Supreme Court recently said there is no violation of the right to privacy if screenshots are used in a criminal case, “that is the caveat — the screenshots must be used in a criminal case.”
“When you present the screenshots as evidence in court, that’s when the Supreme Court ruling will apply,” Falcis said.
Earlier this week, the High Court held that as the chat logs and videos were submitted as evidence to assess criminal liability, the right to privacy was not violated.
