Gone are the days when an information, whether privilege or not can only be found on paper or to go back further in time, in stones. Scientific advancement transformed the life of every living person on earth. The entire content of the voluminous Supreme Court Reports Annotated can now be found in a single compact disk (cd). However, with the advent of technological advancement comes our obsolete and dilapidated laws that serve as a deterrent to to mitigate the ill-effects of technological advancement. The law has failed to cope with the modern times. The sanctity of the privacy of communication and correspondence is now a misnomer or at the very least, had now been deeply compromised. It now begs the question, where were our policymakers during this period of transformation? The scarcity of our privacy laws given this modern age truly reflect our Filipino character that we are short-sighted. We never anticipate or to be more precise, we refuse to anticipate the consequences of the events that are unfolding right before our very own eyes. There is a Filipino saying "isang kahig isang tuka", we live on a day to day basis, already satisfied with the joys and benefits of the present time. Comes now the Data Protection Bill which just preceded the Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act of 2009. The computer age has long started dating back to the early 90's and the use of the internet or the world wide web had long been prevalent in the Philippines. If not for the big scandals that shocked the entire nation which could very well be put as one of the many ill-effects of technological advancement as far as communication is concerned, these laws would not have come into existence. We are not saying that a man could foresee the future nor are we demanding that our policymakers be fortune tellers, nevertheless, we could mitigate the ill-effects or catastrophic consequences of this technological advancement in the future if only we are thinking of it in the present.

The Data Privacy Bill have long been needed in this age, and in the Philippine context, especially with an alarming number of cybercrimes in our country. The state is at a loss ti impose its might on the perpetrator if these cybercrimes  for lack of laws or is toothless because of its dilapidated laws. There is no doubt that this Data Privacy Bill if later on would be enacted as a law will have a great impact in our society. For one, this will greatly discouraged those "black hackers" from hacking the inofrmation of certain individual which he hold so dear without his consent. This will further augment our privacy laws which no less than Article III Section 2 and 3 of the Constitution deemed sacrosanct. 

Criticism on the Data Privacy Bill
Section 5 . Extraterritorial Application
    This Act applies to an act done or practice or practice engaged in and outside the Philippines by an entity

I have no criticism with regard to this provision, although I have one question. Are we in a position to impelement our laws outside our territorial jurisdiction? One can safely assume that this is more than a valid question. Recent events are still fresh in our memories when the Chinese hacked most of the Philippine Government's websites which I assume contains information that is vital to national security or privelege information. The Philippines did only one thing, that is, it pleaded that it should respect its sovereignty. Is the Philppines ready to implement this law considering that we belong to the so called category of "weak states"?