MANILA – A party-list member of the House of Representatives filed a bill which classifies as a criminal act the taking of photographs or videos (sex video scandals) inside motels or similar establishments with this warning: “Your lover today may be your blackmailer tomorrow.”
Congressman Irwin Tieng of the party-list group “Buhay” (Life) filed the bill in the House a few days before the Philippines is to join the rest of the world in celebrating Valentine’s Day on Saturday.
Buhay is identified with the Catholic charismatic movement El Shaddai which claims a membership of 10 million Filipinos both here and abroad and headed by Mike Velarde, also the spiritual adviser of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The bill seeks to criminalize the recording of private acts and other violations of the privacy of an individual, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, through mobile phones or video cameras.
In the Philippines, these videos are popularly know as Pinay Sex Scandals, Pinoy Sex Videos Scandals – which are popular in many Filipino blogs.
Tieng revealed his office has monitored many cases where individuals spread sex videos on the Internet or via Bluetooth on cellular phones to get back at former lovers who broke their hearts or to blackmail them in revenge.
The congressman also noted that motel owners or employees had been found responsible for the unauthorized taping of indecent video clips.
Some of the videos, Tieng disclosed, have ended up in the hands of people who mass produce and sell them to voyeurs.
One of these sex videos which has made the rounds allegedly involved a ranking government official, who has yet to be identified in public, who was caught in an “intimate moment” with his lover, allegedly the wife of another official, inside one of the luxury hotels in Metro Manila.
In another case, the former lover of a police officer in Mindanao sought his dismissal from the service by filing administrative and criminal charges against him.
The woman claimed that when they broke up, the officer tried to take revenge by allegedly spreading through the Internet their trysts inside a motel which he recorded without her permission through his mobile phone.
The bill seeks to penalize violators up to six years in jail and a maximum fine equivalent to $10,000 especially for those doing peep show clips or those engaged in audio-visual “kiss and tell.”
According to Tieng, his proposal can be considered “a crime against persons” upon the recommendation of a retired senior prosecutor in the Department of Justice whom he consulted in drafting the proposal.
This means that anybody can file a case against the culprit even if the family of the victim or victims refuses to do so, Tieng explained.
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