Reeking of rancid, rancor

The principle of ex post facto in law where legislation is not considered retroactive and thus cannot cover acts committed at a time when no law was existent to create a violation makes sense from the perspective of legally holding an accused accountable.

A person cannot be charged and held accountable for crimes or violations of a law prior to that law’s effectivity. Because such determination of accountability is a function of specific points in time it is critical that the act should occur prior to the law’s writing.

That being said, accountability is a far more complex matter than one simply subjected to simplistic timelines. There are universal wrongful acts whether laws recognize these or not.

Moreover, the question of accountability is not only in reference to an act committed but more important, on the injury that an act results in. This is important where justice is the objective. Specially where the injury is inequitably heavy. While accountability might be based on specific points in time, an injury might be continuing, constant and persistent.

For example, the American civil rights movement in the early 1960’s produced critical legislation to outlaw racial and sexual discrimination. But acts prior to those laws, and even after laws were passed, continue. The negative effects on the victims of acts certainly continue well beyond statutory enactment. And because of the ex post facto principle, true justice for the victims can never be fully attained.

Another example which might drive our point harder into petrified minds is the debate on doctor-assisted euthanasia for the terminally ill who request for such assistance. There are certain jurisdictions in Northern Europe that allow this.

The debate has reached the United States. What was once considered as manslaughter might now be legal and thus accountabilities are avoided. Yet what cannot be avoided is that a person had taken the life of another.

While we subscribe to the ex post facto principle because lines indeed have to be drawn somewhere, we commiserate with victims since the principle protects the perpetrator where it erases accountability based on nothing more than a date. Note the inequity between limited accountability versus continuing injustice.

Legal accountability may be avoided but where injustices and injuries continue, no date-based statute can erase wrongful acts committed whether the injustice was inflicted before or after a law is written.

Allow us to extrapolate this discussion and apply it to the accusations of cybercrimes accused against Maria Ressa. To the extent possible and so as not to convolute the discourse, we will attempt to depoliticize the debate.

The original cyberlibel charge under the Cybercrimes Law was brought against Ressa in October 2017 for an opinion piece first published in May 2012, updated and republished in May 2014 and from then onwards, it remained in the public domain until 2017 when the charges were filed.

According to one columnist, the article still remains accessible continuously in the public domain. Along this unbroken continuum, four months after the start of the continuous publication of the defamation material, the Cybercrimes Law took effect and should thus impact on both the continuing publication and the continuing injuries caused.

For ordinary libel there is a statute of limitations of one year. Under the Cybercrimes Law there is none. A statute of limitations would have rendered the violation of a private person’s rights rancid. But under the Cybercrimes Law, for as long as the offensive material is accessible and remains in the public domain then the violation likewise remains just as evergreen.

In the Ressa case the violation of the victim’s rights reeks of both rancidity and rancor.

Rancid because it refers to an incident during the impeachment trial of Renato Corona. As the subject matter was published at exactly the same month when the trial ended and since it had absolutely no relation to any of the impeachment charges, then the element of malice towards the maligned was present. More so where certain criminal activities that were impugned were never proven.

This leads us to rancor and ill-will. Using a bystander, Ressa effectively wielded media as a tool of hatred where an accusation was maliciously created towards an innocent person — who was totally unrelated to the Corona impeachment — enough to ensure that hate prevails and Corona falls.