ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

NBN-ZTE SCANDAL
After 13 hearing and 4 technical working groups, the Blue Ribbon Committee came up
with the following indisputable facts:
This is a story of how people in high places-the relatives of the most powerful men and
women in government took advantage of their relationships, either with their parent or spouse , to
cajole the Executive into entering a national broadband contract that would obtain something our
country did not need, and which is manifestly disadvantageous to the Filipino people. It is about
the war of the most powerful, most influential and most organized syndicates in government, some
members of which are public officers, who were at each other’s throats because of an alleged
double-cross. It is about the never ending battle among the political elite for economic power,
domination and control.
On the one hand, we have former Comelec Chairman Benjamin S. Abalos who claims to
have no less that the First Gentleman as his political sponsor. With him are Leo San Miguel, Ruben
Reyes and General Qurino De La Torre. They are known as the Filipino group. They are the group
that were lobbying for ZTE.
On the other hand, we have Mr. Jose De Venecia III, the son of then House Speaker Jose
De Venecia, Jr. who had no less than former NEDA Director General Romulo Neri as well as
Neri’s confidante, Engineer Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada, as staunch supporters to hus BOT
scheme. Mr. Jose De Venecia III claims that he is a whistleblower. However, there were many
times in this scandal that he could have blown the whistle, but did not. He only started complaining
when he did not get his way. Mr. Jose De Venecia III and his group were pushing for Amsterdam
Holdings to capture the national broadband project.
In the middle of it all, is a President who was unable to control and discipline her own men
as they fight over their kickbacks. She kept her silence in the midst of the corruption- acquiescing
and condoning the deed. The facts pointing to her may not be total, but the stink is perceived to
have reached her office.
Because the NBN-ZTE controversy has reached fever pitch, the Philippine government had
to cancel the contract. Former Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos also resigned from his position
in the Constitutional Commission.
The NBN-ZTE scandal remains to be one of the most acrimoniously debated issues in the
Philippines. If people look at the opportunists in this scandal, they will discover that they are all
scavengers and predators ready to feast on the carrions of their preys. And when they cannot get
their rightful share of the booty, one of them squeals and they start pointing fingers at one another.
Everyone in this story stands accountable to the Filipino nation. This deal would been kept
hidden if all of the characters were able to “moderate their greed” and if ever they lived up to the
saying that there is “honor among thieves.” But, the situation got out of hand and the self-
proclaimed loser, Mr. Jose De Venecia III, spilled the beans.
Source: https://www.senate.gov.ph/lisdata/1293411633!.pdf
ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

Reaction: (NBN-ZTE Scandal)

With the advent of technology, innovations are constantly evolving in today’s world. Each
country are slowly adapting to the technological advances that we have in hope of making things
easier. However, not all the times, the intentions of those under transactions are entirely good.
These kind of projects pave the way to corruption.

The Philippine National Broadband Network controversy or simply NBN-ZTE mess is

basically a story of corruption among our public officials. The fact that some sources state that it
was just mere allegations but if justice would prevail, the characters involved in this mess are
indeed corrupt in the absolute sense. These officials entering into an unconstitutional 329 million
US dollar construction contract is definitely unethical. Most importantly, this mess has been a war
for the most organized syndicates in the government.

But what is actually the relevance of this issue in the subject matter? As I delved deeper on
the issue of NBN-ZTE scandal, I found out that this mess is unethical and unconstitutional. The
people involved in agreement violated Article VII (Telecommunications Development) Section 22
of the Public Telecommunication Policy Act of the Philippines. Among the people who were sued
are officials from ZTE and DOTC for violating the Telecoms Policy Act, which required
privatization of all telecommunications facilities.

Also the deal was not entirely meant to benefit the Filipino people. The supposed main
benefactor of this deal is basically the government as it will the government communications
capabilities.
ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

CYBERCRIME

Cybercrime goes beyond the technical, transnational dimension and involves offenders

who deliberately fashion their attacks to exploit the potential weaknesses present in the

infrastructure’s transnational nature. It threatens the substantial and growing reliance of commerce,

governments, and the public upon the information infrastructure to conduct business, carry

messages, and process information.

Cybercrime is one of the fastest growing non-violent crimes in the Asian region. It takes

a great deal of technical expertise and co-operation, both local and foreign, in order to address such

problems. This crime affects different countries in varying degrees, depending on the extent of the

legislative enactment of each country. In the Philippines, as technical and electronic landscapes

change, there is a need to enact laws or amend existing laws to fully address cyber threats.

Source: http://www.unafei.or.jp/english/pdf/RS_No79/No79_12PA_Sosa.pdf
ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

Reaction: (Cybercrime)

Ethics are grounded in the notion of responsibility (as free moral agents, individuals,

organizations, and societies are responsible for the actions that they take) and accountability

(individuals, organizations, and society should be held accountable to others for the consequences

of their actions). In most societies, a system of laws codifies the most significant ethical standards

and provides a mechanism for holding people, organizations, and even governments accountable.

The world of Internet today has become a parallel form of life and living. Public are now

capable of doing things which were not imaginable few years ago. The Internet is fast becoming a

way of life for billions of people and also a way of living because of growing dependence and

reliance of the mankind on these machines. Internet has enabled the use of website communication,

email and a lot of anytime anywhere IT solutions for the betterment of mankind. Internet, though

offers great benefit to society, also present opportunities for crime using new and highly

sophisticated technology tools. The abuse of technology has been rampant since the innovations

has been constant.

Raising awareness about cybercrime law could somehow prevent the abuse of our

technological advancements from these low key or nonviolent crimes happening online. These

cybercrime acts has countless effects not only in the present but future generations. Among these

are moral degradation among the new generations, loss of revenue, tarnished reputations, breached

user’s privacy and etc. which are all eye-opener to everyone to not take these problems lightly.

The best way to slowly impair cybercrime is think not only solutions to overcome these problems

but also ways to prevent the factors that contribute to these abomination.
ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

DOMAIN NAME

The identification string that defines an authority or control within the Internet formed by
the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS) is called the Domain Name. Any
name registered in the DNS is a domain name. Domain names are used in various networking
contexts and application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name
represents an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the
Internet, a server computer hosting a web site, or the web site itself or any other service
communicated via the Internet.

Domain names serve to identify Internet resources, such as computers, networks, and
services, with a text-based label that is easier to memorize than the numerical addresses used in
the Internet protocols. A domain name may represent entire collections of resources or individual
instances. Individual Internet host computers use domain names as host identifiers, also called host
names. The term host name is also used for the leaf labels in the domain name system, usually
without further subordinate domain name space. Host names appear as a component in Uniform
Resource Locators (URLs) for Internet resources such as web sites. Domain names are also used
as simple identification labels to indicate ownership or control of a resource. Example of these are
the identifiers used in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the Domain Keys used to verify DNS
domains in e-mail systems, and in many other Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).

An important function of domain names is to provide easily recognizable names to

numerically addressed Internet resources. Domain names are used to establish a unique identity.
Organizations can choose a domain name that corresponds to their name, helping Internet users to
reach them easily.

Domain names are often simply referred to as domains and domain name registrants are
frequently referred to as domain owners, although domain name registration with a registrar does
not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use for a particular
duration of time. The use of domain names in commerce may subject them to trademark law.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org
ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

Reaction: (Domain Name)

A special approach of hacking is by using enticing domain names to acquire other people’s

personal data. Through the use of homographs, hackers can now create domain names that

supersedes an English characters with another like characters from another language which serves

as a bait for netizens to click websites and lures them from entering their personal information

such as passwords or PIN. Most of the time, security becomes unreliable as it fails to determine

the hacking procedure beforehand which makes the problem more difficult to get rid of and worse

is getting out of hand.

Another term for such act is domain hijacking which can be very devastating to original

domain name holder not only financially as they may have derived commercial income from a

website hosted at the domain or conducted business through that domain's e-mail accounts but also

in terms of readership and/or audience for non-profit or artistic web addresses. Additionally, the

hijacker or hackers can use the domain name to facilitate illegal activity such as phishing, where a

website is replaced by an identical website that records private information such as log-in

passwords, spam, or even distribution of malware as I have discussed earlier.

ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

INTERNET PIRACY

More and more people are choosing the internet for accessing films, music, books and
games because of the rapid advancement of the internet and technology and the increasing
reliability of it whether it’s for a mobile phone, personal computers or smart TV. However, with
the increase demand for online consumption and as the broadband speeds becoming faster and
more affordable also comes the increase in online piracy.

Pirate sites displays advertising also to prevent detection and to look more legitimate to
users but the criminals behind them generate millions of dollars of revenue. Pirate sites are haven
for theft enabling criminals behind it to profit from intellectual property of other people. These
sites are also a sanctuary for malware, viruses and frauds and almost 95 % of these websites contain
these harmful data.

There are types of online piracy that provide access to copyrighted content. The first one
is the streaming site, it allows users to view copyrighted content freely without downloading the
actual file. Sites may stream directly or provide links to contents hosted in other websites. Similar
to legal streaming websites, these illegal websites are also user friendly. The second one is the
cyber lockers which are file – storage and file – sharing websites. These websites are common for
music and video files. It is convenient to user since it offers fast and anonymous distribution
content. These sites generate a huge amount of revenue through subscription. The oldest and most
common type of online piracy is the P2P (peer to peer) sharing, p2p sharing allows your computer
to store files and be available for copying other users. The most common website that uses this
type are the torrent sites. You can then transfer exact copies of files from one user to another. It is
legal to share large amount of data however it is being used to share copyrighted files.

Different countries are trying to enforce laws and regulations to bring down these sites and
are almost successful in implementing it as well as the developers and distributors of various types
of media are more focus in combating piracy and the profit carried by these files.

Sources: piracy.web.unc.edu; fact-uk.org.uk

ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

Reaction: (Internet Piracy)

Just as preventing theft in the offline world requires a combination of industry-backed

technical controls such as locks, anti-theft packaging as well as a government-funded system of
law enforcement, digital piracy requires a coordinated approach. Much of this effort will likely
come from industry, but government has an important role to play in protecting the intellectual
property of copyright holders as a strong legal system is the bedrock of commerce in both the
digital and analog world. In addition, government should not preclude those impacted by digital
piracy, including copyright holders and ISPs, from taking steps to limit digital piracy. Not every
effort to reduce digital piracy should be embraced, of course, but there should be no doubt that
efforts clearly directed at digital piracy can be and usually are different from the over-broad,
ineffective methods that are often held up for criticism. In fact there are many technologies
available to confront digital piracy that are cost-effective and only impinge on the “freedom” to
steal. Much more can and should be done to limit digital piracy and we need to open a broad
dialogue that engages all stakeholders, including government, content owners, website operators,
technology developers, and ISPs, on how to improve the global response to the problem of piracy.
Support, rather than impede, anti-piracy innovation, including the development of new technical
means. Encourage coordinated industry action to take steps to fight digital piracy, including steps
like ISP implementation of graduated response systems. More actively pursue international
frameworks and action to protect intellectual property, including digital content.

Widespread piracy over the Internet seriously harms artists, the famous and struggling
alike, who create content, as well as the technicians who produce it. It ultimately also hurts law-
abiding consumers who must pay higher prices for content, enjoy less content, or pay higher prices
for Internet access to compensate for the costs of piracy. Moreover, digital piracy not only results
in the unauthorized distribution of content, it hurts the ability of content producers to create
legitimate business models for selling digital content; as the saying goes, “It’s hard to compete
with free.” While many companies have rallied to the challenge and created compelling businesses
to sell content legally, on the whole, digital content is more profitable to distribute illegally than
legally and always will be.
ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community

to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or sanction. The term
"freedom of expression" is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking,
receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.
Freedom of expression is recognized as a human right under article 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in international human rights law in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 19 of the UDHR states that "everyone
shall have the right to hold opinions without interference" and "everyone shall have the right to
freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information
and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art,
or through any other media of his choice". The version of Article 19 in the ICCPR later amends
this by stating that the exercise of these rights carries "special duties and responsibilities" and may
"therefore be subject to certain restrictions" when necessary "[f]or respect of the rights or
reputation of others" or "[f]or the protection of national security or of public order (order public),
or of public health or morals".
Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute,
and common limitations to freedom of speech relate
to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified
information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right
to privacy, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury. Justifications for such include
the harm principle, proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which suggests that: "the only
purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others." The idea of the "offense principle" is also used in
the justification of speech limitations, describing the restriction on forms of expression deemed
offensive to society, considering factors such as extent, duration, motives of the speaker, and ease
with which it could be avoided. With the evolution of the digital age, application of the freedom
of speech becomes more controversial as new means of communication and restrictions arise, for
example the Golden Shield Project, an initiative by Chinese government's Ministry of Public
Security that filters potentially unfavorable data from foreign countries.
The right to freedom of expression has been interpreted to include the right to take and
publish photographs of strangers in public areas without their permission or knowledge.
ARGAYOSO, KIM S.

Reaction: (Freedom of Speech)

The widespread adoption of online media has empowered individuals to develop new

forms of expression, reach new audiences and quickly disseminate information around the world.

From emails and blogs, to YouTube and Twitter, new digital technologies are enabling people who

otherwise might not have been heard to express themselves and engage in far-flung conversations

that were once near impossible.

However, threats to free expression are just as prevalent online as they are off. As the

benefits of the Internet and digital technologies continue to present new opportunities for free

expression, the challenges of defending this right have also grown increasingly complex. Is the

world of free expression online a reflection of traditional media? Yes. The underlying challenges

remain the same. Authorities continue to try to control messages, just as others continue to try and

share important news and information, and have their voices heard.

But the intricacies of the online world have added just as many challenges as opportunities.

We must remain vigilant in defending and protecting this important human right, online and off.

The circumstances surrounding free expression online are increasingly complex, and we need to

be aware of the intricacies. We need to be vigilant about our privacy, and stand up for our right to

free expression. We need to continue to work to create spaces for people to connect, share their

thoughts, ideas, and opinions without fear of persecution.