A woman from the small town of Sikatuna now serves as another reminder for netizens to be mindful of what they post on social media.
Simforiana Ugay on Wednesday voluntarily surrendered to authorities after a Tagbilaran City court released a warrant for arrest against her over a cyberlibel case.
Judge Jorge Cabalit, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 48, found probable cause for the issuance of an arrest warrant against Ugay who has been accused of publishing defamatory posts on Facebook.
Ugay presented herself before the court and immediately posted bail.
The court set the bail at P48,000 for her temporary liberty.
Cybercrime on the rise
Based on a 2019 data from the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG), the number of cybercrime cases have been on an uptrend in the past six years.
Most of the cases were online libel.
The ACG data indicated that online libel cases surged from only 22 incidents in 2013 to 661 from January to June in 2019.
Other top cybercrimes were online scam, illegal photography and video voyeurism, computer-related identity theft, and threat. (wm)