The Republic Act 10175 otherwise known as the "Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012" is the first law in the Philippines which criminalizes computer crime. While this law is new to us, crimes committed on a computer are prevalent in the country. For example, the "I Love You" virus which was created by Onel de Guzman and caused damage worldwide amounting to $2 billion to $5 billion. Onel, however, was not prosecuted by the government due to lack of legal basis for him to be charged under existing laws at that time. It took the congress almost 11 years to pass this law, due to controversial provisions under this law. The RA 10175, was the product of House Bill No. 5808 and Senate Bill No. 2796
The first chapter of the law is the preliminary provisions. Section 1 states the name of the law while the section 2, discusses the declaration of policies, in which the state recognizes the vital role of information and communication industries and the importance of providing an environment conducive to the development of information and communications technology (ICT); and the need to protect and safeguard the integrity of computer, computer and communications systems, networks, and databases, and the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and data stored therein, from all
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The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) was tasked to be the one responsible for the enforcement and the implementation of the provision under this act. It is their duty to ensure that the technical nature of cybercrime and its prevention is given focus and since the NBI is under the Department of Justice(DOJ), The secretary of justice has the power to issue a disclosure, search, seizure and examination of computer data. This power was also criticize by some for it is technically analogous to a court order of a search warrant or a