Internet in the Philippines

Internet in the Philippines first became available on March 29, 1994, with the Philippine Network Foundation (PHNet) connected the country and its people to Sprint in the United States via a 64 kbit/s link. As of 2016, more than 44,000,000 people used the internet in the country, accounting for 43.5% of the total population.

A year after the connection, The Public Telecommunications Act of the Philippines was made into law. Securing a franchise is now optional for value-added service providers. This law enabled many other organizations to establish connections to the Internet, to create Web sites and have their own Internet services or provide Internet service and access to others.

However the growth of the Internet in the Philippines was hindered by many obstacles including unequal distribution of Internet infrastructure throughout the country, its cost and corruption in the government. But these obstacles did not altogether halt all the developments. More connection types were made available to more Filipinos. Increasing bandwidth and a growing number of Filipino Internet users were proof of the continuing development of the Internet in the country.

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, codified as Republic Act No. 10175, criminalized cybersquatting, cybersex, child pornography, identity theft, illegal access to data and libel. The act has been criticized for its provision on criminalizing libel, which is perceived to be a curtailment in freedom of expression. After several petitions submitted to the Supreme Court of the Philippines questioned the constitutionality of the Act, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on October 9, 2012, stopping implementation of the Act for 120 days.

A Magna Carta for Philippine Internet Freedom was filed in the Philippine legislature in 2013 to, among others, repeal Republic Act No. 10175. The Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No 10175 were promulgated on August 12, 2015.

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