PSORHN's Position Paper on the Two Pending Senate Bills on Electronic Violence Against Women

PSORHN Trustee Janina Santos with Brave Women. Invigorated to continue fighting for safety and security of women online and offline by the presence of these two courageous ladies - Jessica, a fellow resource person for the Senate Committee Hearing for Gender Based Electronic Violence, and Senator Risa Hontiveros, staunch advocate for women's rights

The Philippine Society is SRH Nurses, Inc. received an invitation to meet with the staff of Senator Risa Hontiveros, the proponent of the Tres Marias bills which aimed to strengthen the existing rape law, introduce peer-to-peer sexual harassment, and prosecute online violence against women and the LGBT. The Society's Trustee, Ms. Janina Santos, was also invited as a resource person during the hearing of the Senate Committees on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality; and Science and Technology for a public hearing on the said bill.


This engagement opens up a whole new avenue on protecting our sexual rights online, which something every netizen should look forward to.

Two bills concerning online violence are in deliberation. 

Senator Hontiveros's proposed "Gender-based Electronic Violence Act of 2016” is an amalgamation of Senator Binay's expansion of VAW to cyberspace and the reality than the LGBT is also a constant target of online violence. In this bill, gender-based electronic violence (GBEV) is defined as, "an offense refers to any acts or omissions involving the use or exploitation of ephemeral data or any form of information and communications technology (ICT) which causes or is likely to cause mental, emotional, or psychological distress or suffering to the female victim or Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer (LGBTQ) victim, and tending to disparage the dignity and personhood of the same on account of his or her gender, including but not limited to: 

In 2013, Senator Nancy Binay filed the proposed Electronic Violence Against Women (E-VAW) Law of 2013, which aimed to expand the coverage of the existing Anti Violence Against Women and Their Children Act (RA9262) to cyberspace. While an excellent proposal due to the proliferation of revenge porn cases - where intimate partners upload, the E-VAW bill still only covers women who were violated by people who they have sexual or dating relationships with. The bill, therefore, does not encompass online violence committed by persons who have no relation to the victim - such as in the case of the girl who protested against Marcos or those men who kept sharing women's photos with lewd comments. 

1. Unauthorized recording, reproduction or distribution of videos showing the victim’s naked or undergarment-clad genitals, public area, buttocks or breasts;

2. Uploading or sharing without the consent of the victim, any form of media that contain pictures, voice or video of the victim with lewd, indecent, obscene or sexual content:

3. Harassing or threatening the victim through text messaging, obscene, misogynistic, homophobic or indecent posts in social media sites, or other cyber, electronic or multimedia means;

4. Cyber-stalking which includes, but is not limited to the hacking of personal accounts on social networking sites, the use of location trackers on cellular devices; and

5. Unauthorized use of the victim’s picture, video, voice, name or any other aspect of the victim’s identity and distributing the same in any video game, phone application, program and the like, which deliberately exposes the victim to harassment and attack and puts or tends to put the victim in a bad light or injure the victim’s reputation."

The innovations of these bills filed by Senators Binay and Hontiveros serve as responses to the changing times and the dynamic challenge of preventing and persecuting gender based violence. I, for one, am excited to see this landmark bill become law.

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Janina Gillian O. Santos