This page features the full text of
March
19, 1998
Mr.
Perfecto R. Yasay, Jr.
Chairman
Securities
and Exchange Commission
SEC
Building, EDSA, Greenhills
Mandaluyong
City
S
i r :chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary
This
has reference to your request for a “definite ruling” on
whether
the Internet business constitutes mass media which should not be given
to foreign investors pursuant to Section II (1), Article XVI of the 1987
Constitution.
The
aforesaid constitutional mandate pertinently provides, to wit:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary
…”
(Art.
XVI, 1987
Constitution)
(Emphasis supplied)
The
request, it appears, is raised in connection with the implementation of
the Second Regular
Foreign
Investment Negative List (E.O. No. 362, s. 1996).
In
Opinion No. 24 s. 1986, this Department, construing and identical
provision
in the 1973
Constitution said:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary
An
almost identical definition of “mass media” is found in the
Rules
and Regulations for Mass Media in the Philippines adopted by the Media
Advisory Council and approved by the President of the Philippines
(See
De Leon, Textbook on the Philippine Constitution, 1994 ed., p. 579)
.
According to said RR, the term “mass media” embraces means of
communication
that reach and influence large numbers of people including print media
(especially newspapers, periodicals and popular magazines) radio,
television,
and movies, and involved the gathering, transmission and distribution
of
news, information, messages, signals and all forms of written, oral and
visual communications
(see also, DOJ
Opinion No. 163,
s. 1973)
Upon
the other hand, the “Internet” is a “giant network which
interconnects
innumerable smaller groups of linked computer networks" (American
Civil
Liberties Union vs. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824,830, cited in “Purging
Pornography
in the Internet”, which virtually covers the entire globe, can
either
be through the use of a computer or computer terminal that is directly
(and usually permanently) connected to a computer network that is
itself
directly or indirectly connected to the Internet, or through the use of
a “personal computer” with “modem” to connect over a
telephone
line to a larger computer network that is itself directly of indirectly
connected to the Internet
(id.,
at p 97).
Considering
the nature and function of an Internet and the fact that it offers
three
broad types of services, i.e., (1) electronic mail (e-mail)
which
is the computer version of the post office as it can transmit both text
and still or moving visual messages to an addressee or multiple
addresses
in a mailing list; (2) Bulletin Board System (BBS) which emulates an
ordinary
bulletin board and; (3) World Wide Web (WWW) which consists of
documents
(with their respective addresses) stored in the Internet containing
varied
information in text, still images or graphics
(see,
ACLU case, supra, at pp. 836-838)
,
it may be
safely said that an Internet access provided is one engaged in offering
to the owner of a computer the services of inter-connecting the
latter’s
computer to a network of computers thereby giving him access to said
services
offered by Internet.
Construed
in light of the earlier definition of “mass media” which
involves
not only the transmittal but also the creation/publication, gathering
and
distribution of the news, information, messages and other forms of
communications
to the general public, it appears indubitable that the Internet
business
does not constitute mass media. Accordingly, it cannot fall
within
the coverage of the constitutional mandate limiting ownership and
management
of mass media to citizens of the Philippines or wholly-owned and
managed
Philippine corporations.
The
rationale is because in Internet business, the Internet access provided
merely serves a carrier for transmitting messages. It does not create
the
messages/information nor transmit the messages/information to the
general
public, as mass media do, and the publication of the messages
/information
or stories carried by the Internet and transmitted to the computer
owner,
thru the access provider, is decided by the sender or the inter-linked
networks.
The
foregoing considered, your query is answered in the negative.
(Signed) SILVESTRE H. BELLO III Secretary
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