Position Paper on the “Digital Media Anti-False Information Act” or HB 9465
The Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) opposes House Bill No. 9465, the consolidated (substitute) bill to the various versions of the priority legislation championed by Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos aimed at addressing disinformation and fake news.
While framed as a measure to curb deliberate deception, a structural analysis reveals that HB 9465 or the “Digital Media Anti-False Information Act” establishes a mechanism for state-directed, platform-enforced censorship.
By coercing social media platforms with severe financial penalties, installing the executive branch as gatekeepers of academic and civil data, and introducing criminal penalties that invite pre-trial harassment, the measure threatens to further shrink civic space. CPDG calls on Congress to reject this measure entirely and pivot toward non-punitive, rights-based transparency frameworks.
Weaponization of the Pre-Trial Process: The “High Mens Rea” Fallacy
Proponents defend HB 9465 by pointing to the strict legal standards embodied in Section 4. To secure conviction under the Prohibited Acts, the state must simultaneously prove:
- Actual knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth;
- Specific intent to cause harm; and
- Manifestation of “verifiable public harm” or a “serious threat to national security.”
While this language is designed to pass constitutional scrutiny on paper, it ignores the operational reality of legal harassment in the Philippines. Under Section 9, a violation carries a draconian prison sentence of 6 to 12 years. State actors do not need to secure final conviction to silence a critic; They merely need to file charges and secure an arrest warrant based on an initial finding of “probable cause” regarding a critic’s alleged “reckless disregard for truth.” Subjecting an individual to prolonged pre-trial detention and financial strain functions as Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). The severity of a 12-year prison threat creates an immediate chilling effect that effectively stifles public dissent long before a court reaches a final verdict.
Outsourcing Censorship to Big Tech: The 6% Revenue Trap
HB 9465 adapts structural elements of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) to target Very Large Online Platforms (VLP-PH). Under Section 10, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is authorized to levy an administrative penalty of up to 6% of a platform’s Philippine annual gross revenue for non-compliance with risk-mitigation mandates.
To protect local revenues from these severe penalties, digital platforms will alert their content moderation systems to become hyper-conservative. To satisfy Section 7(g) which mandates “visibility-reduction measures, contextual labeling, and algorithmic de-amplification,” platforms will deploy automated filters that systematically suppress grassroots advocacy, independent reportage, or community exposures of corruption flagged as “controversial.” This economic coercion effectively privatizes censorship, forcing tech companies to police Filipino citizens on behalf of the state.
Executive Bureaucracy as the Gatekeeper of Data and Truth
HB 9465 relies on a network of ostensibly “independent” bodies to verify information and manage user grievances. However, the bill creates an administrative bottleneck controlled entirely by the executive branch:
- Section 3(c): Out-of-court dispute settlement (ODS) bodies must be accredited by the DICT
- Section 3(bb): Academic researchers and CSOs seeking platform data to study systemic disinformation must be accredited by the DICT or the National Privacy Commission (NPC).
The DICT is a line agency under the Office of the President. Granting an executive agency sole authority to determine who is “vetted,” “impartial,” or “accredited” introduces a structural conflict of interest. An administration can easily grant credentials to state-aligned entities while denying them to progressive academe, independent media networks, and grassroots NGOs. This structure allows the executive branch to control who is permitted to analyze digital discourse and contest information.
Expansion of “National Security” Backdoors to Stifle Grassroots Organizing
Section 3(x) outlines the criteria for a Serious Threat to National Security beyond military defense to include acts that:
“…materially impair[ing] the lawful operations of government through unlawful acts involving violence, sabotage, or fraud…”
The term “fraud” is left dangerously ambiguous. For instance, during a climate disaster, a local farmers’ cooperative might publish social media updates stating that state relief packages have not yet reached their municipality, or that the local agricultural damage is twice as high as what the government is reporting. If a state agency declares these community tallies as “fraudulent” or “fabricated statements” meant to stir public panic, this routine civic monitoring could be reclassified as a national security threat that materially impairs government operations.
Furthermore, Section 6(k) and 7(g) target “dark patterns” and “algorithmic amplification.” If a progressive social movement launches a digital campaign to coordinate an online protest or push for a public inquiry, state regulators can easily categorize their digital engagement mechanisms as “manipulative interface designs” or “coordinated deceptive digital operations,” providing a legal pretext to suppress legitimate civic organizing.
Historic Precedents of Administrative and Legal Abuse
The operational dangers of HB 9465 are demonstrated by current patterns of state abuse documented by legal and human rights institutions:
- The Abuse of “Material Support” Frameworks: Karapatan’s documentation of the Anti-Terrorism Act (RA 11479) reveals how easily the term “material assistance” is weaponized. Legitimate community health programs and rural feeding initiatives have faced frozen bank accounts and trumped-up charges under the guise of providing material support illegal operations. Replicating a “material assist” framework in HB 9465 allows the state to criminalize the donors, technical partners, and web hosts of progressive NGOs.
- The Proliferation of Strategic Retaliatory Lawsuits: The National Union of People’ Lawyers (NUPL) defense of human rights advocates highlights a dangerous precedent: public officials frequently use cyber-libel as a retaliatory weapon when exposed by civil society. For example, when Karapatan and allied organizations conducted independent fact-finding missions into rural human rights violations and published their findings online, high-ranking state officials retaliated by filing systemic cyber-libel charges to tie up defenders in grueling legal battles.
- Administrative Prior Restraint and Arbitrary Digital Blocking: Beyond criminal prosecution, the absolute danger of HB 9465 lies in its institutionalization of administrative prior restraint, where the executive branch bypasses the judiciary to instantly restrict information. The starkest historical precedent for this occurred in June 2022, when the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), acting solely on a letter-request from the National Security Advisor, issued a memorandum directing all internet service providers (ISPs) in the country to immediately block access to 27 websites, including award-winning independent media outlets like Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly, along with various fisherfolk and agricultural organizations. The NTC issued this sweeping digital block without a court order, without presenting competent evidence, and without giving the affected publications any prior notice or opportunity to defend themselves.
HB 9465 provides a permanent, legalized framework for this exact type of arbitrary administrative censorship. By forcing Big Tech platforms under Section 7(g) to comply with state-directed “moderation requests” and implement “visibility-reduction measures” or “algorithmic de-amplification” under the threat of ruinous revenue fines, the bill effectively allows executive line agencies to suppress independent journalism, community reportage, and civil society websites behind closed doors, completely removing the constitutional guardrails of judicial due process.
HB 9465 does not remedy patterns of abuse; it institutionalizes and expands them into the digital age.
CPDG firmly reasserts that the solution to disinformation is not the restriction of expression, but the expansion of democratic transparency and media empowerment. We strongly urge the legislature to adopt the following measures:
- Reject HB 9465 in its entirety: Halt the passage of the “Digital Media anti-False Information Act” on its impending third reading. Freedom of speech must not be compromised for administrative convenience or political insulation.
- Prioritize People-Centered Legislation: Shift legislative energy towards passing bills that genuinely protect civil space and expand public knowledge, such as the Human Rights
- Defenders Protection Act and the long-delayed, robust operationalization of a genuinely open Freedom of Information (FOI) Law across all branches of government.
- Invest in Institutional and Non-Legal Solution: In alignment with recommendations from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the state must focus on integrating deep media and information literacy programs into the education system in close democratic partnership with independent media and civil society, rather than establishing state-monitored legal boundaries around public thought.
Public trust in governance is earned through structural transparency, absolute accountability, and the protection of civil liberties. It can never be compelled through a penal code. A government that is secure in its truth does not need to weaponize the law to silence its people.#