Humblebola

By: Atty. Toby Pavon

UAAP Season 89 started off with one the most exciting innovations in all history of UAAP, not one, but TWO Centel pages were created.

For those who aren’t terminally online, “Centel” refers to a parody page derived from “NBA Centel” that tried to get as close as possible to “NBA Central” while posting the most believably unbelievable reports about the NBA for sh*ts and giggles. The humor is that it would intentionally post knowingly false stories about real people. They got so good at making believably unbelievable posts that people started believing that their stories were true, some of which even reaching mainstream media. Hence “Centel-ed” was born.

UAAP Centel on Twitter and Facebook started only this season and people were eager to see what kind of debauchery their page-runners would come up with. Twitter version started pumping out fake quotes like a D&D Dungeon Master trying to fill in the bookshelves of his homebrew world’s library, while Facebook version started pumping out memes based on tropes and labelling players one of the tropes based on their performance… basically an extension of the UAAP memes page.

Whichever floated whosever’s boats, they were parody pages being silly and obviously for entertainment. Is it at the student-athlete’s expense? Sometimes, sure. For the most part it has been commentary on their performance, with the really mean-spirited posts directed at institutions and the adults involved.

So color us surprised when the Facebook version posted about receiving threats of lawsuits from alleged individuals who weren’t happy with their posts about certain players:

It’s not the first time a meme page, blog, entity that talks about public events, has been threatened with legal action. (Heck the entire UAAP media landscape was threatened with legal action over copyrights issues before). But let’s look into the threats and see which ones to actually worry about:

Cyberbullying

Many of you are probably asking right now, “Is this a case of cyberbullying?”

Yes, probably.

The more appropriate question to be asking is, “Is cyberbullying a crime?”

No it’s not. But you still shouldn’t do it.

The definition of cyberbullying can be found in R.A. 10627 or the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013. It reads:

SEC. 2. Acts of Bullying . – For purposes of this Act, “bullying” shall refer to any severe or repeated use by one or more students of a written, verbal or electronic expression, or a physical act or gesture, or any combination thereof, directed at another student that has the effect of actually causing or placing the latter in reasonable fear of physical or emotional harm or damage to his property; creating a hostile environment at school for the other student; infringing on the rights of the other student at school; or materially and substantially disrupting the education process or the orderly operation of a school; such as, but not limited to, the following:

d. Cyber-bullying or any bullying done through the use of technology or any electronic means.

As can be seen, bullying and cyber-bullying has a limited scope of application. It refers to acts done among students, meaning a classroom setting. So it would only be considered bullying (legally) if it was done by and to students, usually of the same school.

Furthermore, the legal maxim nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege is applicable in this situation. The anti-bullying act does not prescribe penalties for students who commit bullying. Instead, it mandates that learning institutions adopt anti-bullying policies and punishes the institutions for failing to comply.

That being said, cyber-bullying is not a crime that you can accuse a random stranger of committing. The law that defines it was made to mandate schools to adopt anti-bullying measures to address it within their institutions.

Even if it’s not a crime per se, the only bullying that should be seen in the UAAP is when a big gets a mismatched small defender in the post, with its cyber-bullying counterpart being done in the e-Sports tournaments.

Cyber-libel

Another common threat to these meme pages is to file cyber-libel cases against them. Spoiler: Cyber-libel is indeed a crime.

Is this a case of cyber-libel?

In my professional opinion, I don’t think so.

The crime of libel has five elements:

• (a) imputation of a discreditable act or condition to another;
• (b) publication of the imputation;
• (c) identity of the person defamed; and,
• (d) existence of malice

Imputation of a discreditable act or condition to another means to claim that a person has done a crime or that he has done something shameful (different from claiming what he has done is shameful). In layman’s terms, it’s an accusation or statement that the person committed a crime, like maybe theft, plunder, murder or many of the other crimes we love to accuse everyone of doing. Or, an accusation that the person is something (meant to be) shameful, usually it’s in the form of saying they are harlots, nepobabies, cronies, or the like.

Being the endorser of a construction materials brand is hardly a crime or something shameful (outside of the context of basketball). Stating that someone did cardio during a game may be in a negative remark, but it’s not a shameful imputation.

Just because it’s a negative remark, doesn’t mean it’s libel. Just because people find it funny, doesn’t mean it’s libel.

We focus on the first element because that’s the most contentious in these posts. They’re memes. They highlight poor performance with humor. So far they’ve stayed away from low blow comments and memes, focusing more on game performance, a matter that everyone will have an opinion about.

It’s true, these meme pages will offend many with its choices on what to comment on, but that’s what they are at the end of the day, commentary, opinions, the thoughts of people expressed in a way that is baked into comedy and satire. These pages are the jesters of the internet, using humor to speak their minds. Threats of libel are like the monarchs of old losing their temper, calling for the hanging of their jesters. In the old times, it was often a bad sign when the king called for the hanging of the jester.