By Reynaldo D. Gonzales, Esq.
Last June 14, 2000, the President of the Republic of the Philippines, His Excellency Joseph Estrada signed into law the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000 under Republic Act 8792 entitled, "An Act Providing for the Regulation and Use of Electronic Commercial and Non-Commercial Transactions, Penalties for Unlawful Use and Other Purposes". The said law was enacted in order to promote e-commerce in the country particularly in business-to-business transactions and business-to-consumer transactions.
Electronic Commerce is already starting to appear in the country and it is but apt that the Congress of the Philippines have come up with a law which will provide the legal framework that shall govern commercial transactions through the Internet.
The Philippines is definitely not and does not want to be immune to the trends abroad. The so-called "globally networked economy" has definitely reached Southeast Asia and the Philippine legislature swiftly dealt with the new trend by enacting a law that will protect both vendors and vendees engaged in the activity called "cybershopping."
The said measure acknowledged that there is indeed a dearth of statutes dealing with the novel area of electronic commerce. Thus, it provided among others guidelines for the legal recognition and admissibility of electronic data messages, documents and signatures. Likewise, the said law mandated all government departments and offices to accept electronic data messages and documents in their transactions with two years from the effectivity of the Act. The measure aims to reduce graft and corruption in government as it lessens personal interaction between government agents and private individuals.
Fresh in every Internet user's mind is the incident which happened about a month ago, when a suspected Filipino hacker unleashed the "ILOVEYOU" computer virus that destroyed files in computer systems worldwide which caused an estimated damage of $10 billion. The Act was also passed to precisely combat against and deter the commission of cybercrimes. It provided penalties for computer hacking , introduction of viruses and piracy of copyrighted works of at least P100,000 and a maximum "commensurate" to the damage incurred, and a mandatory imprisonment of six (6) months to three (3) years among others.
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