HEAR YE! HEAR YE! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!! Announcements, news, letters and everything that a human being can ever think of can now be read by the whole world. There is facebook, twitter, blogs, tumblr and every website that attracts people to post whatever they want and whenever they want to whomever they want to reach. Almost every person that has cellular phones or knowledge in technology can get to avail of all this things. I watch the news every day, it has been a practice since I was a kid because for my father, you should know as early as a toddler what is really happening in the world or what's new about it. As I was watching the news one Friday, it was TV Patrol of Ch. 2, they were going about a survey done that 7 out of 10 Filipinos are internet pinoys or Filipinos who are internet savvy. This only shows that even the most trifty or stingy persons will make it a point to check the internet.
It has also been used by all types of organizations to let the world know about the new things about them. Our government also used this mechanism to make their services more up to date and easily accessible to all the Filipinos no matter where they may be. Even the Office of the President handles the website of the Official Gazette wherein all news about the whereabouts of the President or the new changes being done in the government can easily be known.(gov.ph) Then I thought wow, the world has become really advanced. Upon browsing the website of the government I came to the page if all new issuances and proclamations newly passed by the Congress or the President himself. Then it got me thinking about the news wherein people would always reason out when they got caught doing something illegal that they do not know that there was such a law or they weren’t aware of the newly passed ordinance and that they should just be let off just this time, QUESTION!!!, CAN THE POSTED ISSUANCES OR NEW LAWS PASSED IN THE WEBSITE OF THE GOVERNMENT BE CONSIDERED AS PUBLICATION??? let us take a closer look…
According to the Civil Code of the Philippines, ART. 2. LAWS SHALL TAKE EFFECT AFTER FIFTEEN DAYS FOLLOWING THE COMPLETION OF THEIR PUBLICATION EITHER IN THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE OR IN A NEWSPAPER OF GENERAL CIRCUALTION IN THE PHILIPPINES UNLESS OTHERWISE PROVIDED.
So as I understand, it should first be published in a newspaper of general circulation or the Official Gazette to be considered as published and has full effect. Now being the technologically advanced generation as we are, one cannot help but ponder, is the online version of the Official Gazette can be considered as the one required by the law or are any of the published laws in the website of gov.ph be made applicable to what Article 2 of the Civil Code requires? At first glance, you can think that YES! , the law required official gazette printing and the website said it was the official gazette so this should be the one they were talking about right? But also your going to think that NO! the law presupposes that such publication of the official gazette is actually on paper and not virtually for other people that are not techy savvy to appreciate and understand the law. Well, in my opinion it should be understood that upon the passing of the Civil Code the country has yet to discover the beauty of the internet and its usefulness and they were just talking about the paperbound version of the law, the one you can actually touch. But then let’s face it even the Government has become internet literate and I assume that they have thought about it as well. So maybe they actually consider such internet publication as the publication thought of in the law. Maybe there is this assumption that ones it is published in the internet then all the Filipinos including the non Filipinos will someday click and scan over it and realize that hey, it a new law being applied. Well, One problem with pondering, if there is no strong proof you can never be sure so everything is just opinions and imaginations. So unless there has been news confirmation or status update or tweet about this topic the doors are wide open for more contemplation. So see you on my next ponder moment!
