Shutterbugs shutter: Junk,
not just freeze, anti-selfie bill

Freeze-framing not acceptable, junk the bill now, photogs call on Rodriguez

CONGRESSMAN Rufus Rodriguez may have withdrawn his support for his controversial “anti-selfie” bill but photographers in the Philippine capital are no convinced that the bill has passed on to the beyond.

Instead, it seems like the bill has just been sent to freeze-frame status and re-committed to the House Committee on Public Information chaired by Misamis Occidental Rep. Jorge Almonte.

Almonte happens to be one of the co-sponsors of House Bill 4807 or “An Act to Provide Protection From Personal Intrusion for Commercial Purposes.”

Rodriguez and his brother, partylist Rep. Maximo, Jr., are the main authors of the bill. Its explanatory note states that the bill seeks to protect:

“the privacy of individuals and their families who have been violated by photographers, videographers and audio recorders who physically trespass in order to capture images or other reproductions of their private lives for commercial purposes, or who do so constructively through intrusive modern visual or auditory enhancement devices, such as powerful telephoto lenses and hyperbolic microphones that enable invasion of private areas that would otherwise be impossible without trespassing,” according to the bill’s explanatory note.

Read the full text of the House Bill 02642, the original version that was eventually substituted by HB 4807, on the House of Representatives.

Yet still, Rodriquez seems ambivalent about his position even as he had declared earlier that he has already decided to withdraw his support for the measure.

In a telephone interview with PCIJ September 8, Rodriguez said: “That bill is no more; I’m not pushing through with it anymore, we will not take that up in the third reading (in the plenary).”

However, in a letter to House Committee on Rules chairman, Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II, Rodriguez said he has “re-committed” the bill to the House Committee on Public Information for further hearings.

Simply put, the bill lives still.

Read the full story of PCIJ “Rufus blinks, shutterbugs win“

Our “Out On The Streets” video short features the protest action by photographers at the gates of the House of Representatives in Quezon City on Tuesday, September 9, 2014.