Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers denounced the attempts of certain social media vloggers to file certiorari—a petition for a higher court to review a lower court decision—and libel cases against him and some of his fellow lawmakers.
Barbers, lead chairperson of the Quad Committee and the Dangerous Drugs panel, said he welcomes the filing of libel cases against him, expressing confidence that it won’t merit traction, since he did not mention any names of the so-called “narco-vloggers” in his speeches and interviews.
But he said the move derails the efforts of the House’s Tri Committee tasked to craft laws aimed to regulate use and abuse by social media “contents creators.”
The Mindanao solon earlier delivered two privileges at the House plenary denouncing some alleged narco-vloggers for their disrespect, use of expletives, and other abusive words against some members of the House’s Quad Comm and the Tri Comm.
“If those who filed the libel cases against me all felt alluded to as narco-vloggers, then it could be seen or interpreted that indeed they were. Bakit kayo masasaktan kung hindi kayo guilty? (Why get hurt when you are not guilty?), Barbers asked.
“I always abide by the Constitutional provision on free speech and expression, but this cannot and should not be used as a license to besmirch people’s reputations and throw expletives at their subjects, concoct false or fake narratives and propaganda lines. And I firmly believe that they are not doing it for free,” he said.
Barbers said many of those who filed the petition before the Supreme Court and filed libel cases against him have been summoned to appear before the Tri-Com hearings, but almost all of them failed or refused to do so.
The House’s Tri Committee, composed of the Committees on Public Order and Safety chaired by Santa Rosa Rep. Dan Hernandez; Public Information under Tobias Tiangco; and Communications and Technology under Rep. Jose Aquino III had conducted hearings to hammer out a bill or policy that will regulate vloggers and bloggers using various social media platforms.
The complainant-vloggers earlier filed a “Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition” against Reps. Hernandez, Tiangco, Aquino III and House Speaker Martin Romualdez before the Supreme Court. The High Court has yet to issue a verdict on the issue.