A lawyer shares legal insights regarding Maris Racal and Anthony Jennings’ issues.
The conversation between Maris Racal and Anthony Jennings has been shared online and Atty. Jesus Falcis shares the legal implications of this.
Love team Maris Racal and Anthony Jennings and the actor’s non-showbiz girlfriend are currently the topic online. They have a tangled story and people are thrilled to know more following the screenshots that have been posted online for the public to feast on.
Maris received bashing because of the remarks she made when Jennings and Villanueva were still a couple. The actor also received his share of negative comments for allegedly manipulating his ex-girlfriend and making her believe that what had been going on was just part of their “method acting”.
Many things were said and done but on the part of it, there are legal implications to the part where private conversations were made public. Atty. Jesus Falcis explained and cited the legal risks of the leak.
According to Falcis, he has met several people asking about the legalities of posting private messages and as he would always say, there’s a right to privacy. In 2020, the National Privacy Commission (NPC) clarified that the Data Privacy Act covers screenshots if the identities of people involved were revealed.
“It is worthy to note that the processing, i.e. sending out the screenshot to another person, will only come under the scope of the DPA if personal data is indeed involved—if the conversation/screenshot itself allows for the identification of the parties. If it is simply the content of the conversation, with names and other identities redacted or cropped out of the screenshot, it might not be within the scope of the DPA.”
This means that even if the sharer is a victim of cheating, the act of posting private messages is a ground for cyber libel charges and violating data privacy. The latter accordingly has “stiffer and harsher penalties than cyber libel”.
In a proper manner, screenshots must be used as evidence in a criminal case. Instead of posting on social media, the right thing to do, especially if married, is to file a Violence Against Women case citing psychological violence caused by infidelity.
As for celebrities, matters like this must be handled by the media and let them earn the publicity that the issue needs. In this way, legal liabilities for cyber libel and data privacy are avoided.
In the personal view of Falcis, the unfortunate part of posting the messages between Racal and Jennings is that it was made to shame the actress because of her supposed “thirst trap/hungry” messages. He also noted what Jennings did which was “disgustingly using method acting as justification”.
Toward the end of the post, the attorney wrote, “Cheating is bad. But so is misogyny, enabled by violating the right to privacy. Victims have human rights. But vindicating your rights should not make more victims. Even cheaters have human rights.”
Read below:
About the issue of Maris, Anthony, and Jam
The split became messy after the screenshots were revealed to the public. The messages revealed how Jam’s suspicions were proven to be true. She shares screenshots of private messages between Jennings and Racal.
It included talks about deleting messages, updating each other, video calls, phone calls, the moment of make out they shared in a comfort room, the sweatshirt he left in her house, and many more.
According to Jam, she chose to ignore these signs for months until she no longer could. She “ended things with him as peacefully as she could”.
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