The Quick Pre-Weekend Wrapup...

.:Wrapping Up...:.

It hasn't been an easy week. I'm proud of how productive I've been, though.

First of all, my second article about the Cybercrime Bill is officially the most-read article on the entire 8 List website. I know I expected people to take interest in the topic, but I sure didn't expect that it would get this much coverage. As of today, we've hit about 2,700 likes or so already for the post, and counting. I'm just stunned.

So with all of that, and despite being so occupied here at work that I couldn't help in filing the motion that other bloggers such as Tonyo Cruz, Marocharim, Ade, Tin, and others have, I still found myself in the thick of things, and my tweet on the issue actually ended up on TV.

My odds of getting sued just went way up.

And I'd like to keep running my mouth and cracking jokes about PNoy, Sotto, and all the other "luminaries" who made this abomination of a bill a reality now, but what's the point? They're so petulant and myopic that they probably gained a radar sense to make up for it already.

So I'll leave it at that, really: I've written several articles already, so if anyone wanted to hear more, they can always just follow me on Twitter and ask me there. I'm just too tired to have to add to that.

Speaking of tired, you have no idea what I've been up to this week, and the conversations I've ended up having. Had a double dose of SPIT this week, and even got to drop by Chihuahua's open mic night, where Mike Unson decided to visit. Pretty cool on that count, really, since it was a pleasant surprise to everyone that he showed up there.

Typhoon Marce has come and gone, and I feel like I'm the typhoon, just a whirling dervish the entire week, trying to keep my cool as I went through so many things, even making the decision to turn down a job offer after a lot of careful consideration. Didn't think that would happen.

There's been so many changes as well, and all I could think is how much I miss the warmth. I'm getting there, but I really do feel dazed and confused at the moment. One of them even involves a certain radio station, but I refuse to bring it up until they announce it first...

For now, let me just relish that I've done a good job for this week, and if someone sues me for Cyber-Libel next week, it would be the perfect way to celebrate my 10th year of blogging this coming October 14.

Which reminds me... if my blog has been important enough for you to keep track of, I'm going to try to get people to participate in an experiment come Monday. I just hope I don't get crickets in response.

Have a smashing weekend, everyone!

Project 52 (40/52) 2012: On Being A Blogger For Ten Years (And Why The Cybercrime Law Sucks In Light Of It)

.:Project 52 (40/52) 2012: On Being A Blogger For Ten Years (And Why The Cybercrime Law Sucks In Light Of It):.

It's been nearly ten years for myself as a blogger, and I cannot help but feel nostalgic about it. True, I haven't really managed making a comprehensive retrospective for my blog so far, but it has been an amazing ten years, and I hope I will keep on going and blogging for as long as I have the mental faculties to do it.

Or at least, unless nobody ever decides to sue me for whatever I may have blogged here lest I end up in prison over it.

Considering how eager the PNP seems to be to use the Cybercrime Bill to strike down people who speak ill of policemen, we are really going into unchartered territory at this point.

Beware, because they dare.

Ten years of blogging, and today, we come face to face with this. Wow.

Last week, I was part of the Cyberfreedom Forum organized by Senator TG Guingona, and never have I found more to be awed and disappointed by than to discover that only Senator Guingona even bothered to read the Cybercrime bill enough to actually see why it was problematic. Just ask Chiz Escudero, he'd tell you. How could 23 other senators completely miss this or just willfully allow this? Double jeopardy, using the internet as an aggravating circumstance in and by itself, an abridgement of due process, and an archaic libel law upheld in the cyber arena? What were these people even thinking?!?

This isn't even considering so many other ridiculously misguided sections found in the bill that any lawyer worth their salt would be quick to point out to you. It is just a fustercluck of such epic proportions that I can't help but wonder how they could treat the internet with such contempt and such carelessness.

So here I am, celebrating ten years as a blogger. Yet here I am, also standing against these unmistakable transgressions against my rights as a netizen. What should be a moment of celebration for me is instead a moment of trepidation, because I know that while I may not ever get into legal trouble because of my blog, I could be, if it were their whim and fancy, and there's not a damned thing I could do about it if I let it slide now.

The Cybercrime Law is certainly a hot-button topic and I have already written about it on the POC.  Despite that, it bears repeating here on this blog: this is an attack on our freedom. It is the kind of freedom our heroes have died for that we may enjoy it, no matter how trivial or mundane our exercise of the freedom is. That's exactly the whole point of freedom, after all: you get to exercise it as you see fit, within reason. What this law attempts to do is to abridge that freedom in favor of caprice and arbitrariness. At no point are they required to go through due process, and it sickens me that nobody is watching these watchmen as they level veiled threats against us and attempt to villify the internet so as to pretend that their cause is just.

Well, I won't take it. No way, no how. 

I am Marcelle Fabie. I have been a blogger for ten years, writing with a real name to my words.

And I will not be silenced.

We will not be silenced.