Broad Nets, Narrow Freedoms: The Chill of the New Espionage Act

Broad Nets, Narrow Freedoms: The Chill of the New Espionage Act

Position Paper of the Defend NGOs Alliance on HB 9642

23 September 2026

The Defend NGOs Alliance strongly opposes House Bill No. 9642, “An Act Expanding the Coverage of Espionage Law,” cited as the “New Espionage Act,” authored by Representative Zamora (Y.M.), Oducado, Suan, Romualdo, and more than thirty other co-authors. The House of Representatives approved the bill on third and final reading on 17 September 2026, and has been transmitted to, and received by the Senate for concurrence.

Though framed by its proponents as a modernization of the country’s outdated espionage law, the bill as passed does not confine itself to foreign agents stealing military secrets. Its definitions and prohibited acts are broad enough to reach the ordinary work of journalists, human rights defenders, development and humanitarian workers who receive, document, map, or report on information the State would rather keep from public view. Its severe penalties raise the stakes considerably, while its presumptions further tilt the proceedings against those accused.

Section 18 of the bill folds espionage into the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s (AMLC) enforcement architecture, extending the same asset-freezing and financial-surveillance machinery built under years of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey-list compliance pressure into any organization merely suspected, on the AMLC’s own probable-cause finding, of facilitating an offense under this Act. It arrives alongside the harmonized Foreign Influence and Interference Act, part of a widening pattern in which national-security law is repurposed to track, criminalize, and ultimately isolate independent civil society from the public it serves.

Manufacturing Espionage Out of Ordinary Rights Work

An examination of the bill’s specific provisions reveals mechanisms that potentially criminalize routine human rights documentation, journalism, and development and humanitarian work under the guise of national security.

• Elastic Definitions That Capture Any Critical Communication (Sections 3(a) and 5(a))

  “Classified matter” is whatever “authorized government officers deem sensitive” – there is no independent standard and no timeline for declassification. The core offense of “dealing with classified matters” attaches whenever the act “causes or tends to cause injury to the Philippines, or gives or tends to give advantage to a state, other foreign nation, entity, or individual, whether foreign or domestic.” This subjective standard, notably not even confined to foreign beneficiaries, is broad enough to reach investigative reporting on corruption, human rights documentation, or a leaked internal memo on abuses that embarrasses an agency.

• A Reversed Burden of Proof for Officials, and a Possession Offense for Everyone Else (Section 5)

  The bill’s proviso deems the unauthorized possession of a classified matter by someone outside government “prima facie evidence of disclosure” against the official who, by reason of official function, had custody of it, presuming that official guilty of disclosure whenever a document surfaces beyond their control, whether it was leaked, stolen, or hacked, and shifting to them the burden of proving otherwise. Independently of that proviso, Section 5(a) already lists mere “possessing” a classified matter without authority as a punishable act in itself, meaning journalists, researchers, and organizations who receive and hold such material remain exposed under the general offense regardless of intent to harm.

• Criminalizing the Tools of Human Rights Monitoring (Section 11)

  Possessing or controlling a drone, camera, or tracking device to “surveil, monitor, or spy on” government officials, military personnel, or “individuals involved in national security or defense activities,” or to map facilities connected to them, carries ten to twelve years imprisonment and a fine of up to ₱20 million. Human rights defenders, journalists, and humanitarian actors use drones, cameras, and location-tracking technology to document military and police operations, encampments, and displacement sites.

• “Disloyalty” as a Prosecutable Offense (Section 10)

  Any government employee whose function touches national defense or security who “incites… disloyalty” or distributes material that “causes insubordination, disloyalty… or refusal of duty” faces the same ten-to-twelve-year penalty. This all but revives a sedition-style offense against government whistleblowers, cutting off a channel of insider disclosure that human rights documentation regularly depends on.

• Surveillance Without Adversarial Review (Section 17)

  Notwithstanding the Anti-Wiretapping Law, the bill authorizes wiretapping, interception, and recording of any person merely “suspected” of an offense under the Act, on an ex parte application to the Court of Appeals, and compels telecommunications and internet service providers to turn over customer records, call and text data, and other metadata. No adversarial hearing, and no notice to the person surveilled, is required.

• Guilt by Association, Assistance, and Hospitality (Sections 12 and 13)

  “Aiding or abetting” any offense under the Act, and harboring, concealing, or facilitating the escape of a person one merely “has reasonable ground to believe or suspect” has committed or is about to commit an offense, each carries ten to twelve years’ imprisonment and fines as high as ₱25 million where the offender is a government official. Legal aid providers, shelters, and humanitarian responders who assist people never charged, let alone convicted, are exposed on the strength of suspicion alone.

• Unchecked Executive Power to Declare Places Off-Limits (Section 3(h) and 15)

  A “prohibited place” is defined broadly to cover “a land, building, airspace, maritime domain, systems, network, cyberspace or any area” that the President, the President’s authorized representative, or the Secretary of National Defense designates as such, without independent review. This gives the executive branch the power to place sites of human rights concern, military checkpoints, or conflict-affected communities beyond the reach of documentation.

• Severe, Undifferentiated Penalties (Sections 5 and 7 through 13)

  Life imprisonment without parole or the benefit of Good Conduct Time Allowance is the baseline penalty for the core offense and for conspiracy to commit it, with no distinction in the text between a foreign agent selling military secrets and a researcher photographing a checkpoint. Every other offense in the bill, from proposing espionage to unlawful possession of a drone to harboring a suspect, carries a mandatory floor of ten years. Nothing in the bill allows for sentencing calibrated to intent, harm, or public interest.

The Compounding Threat of Financial and Prosecutorial Overreach

The individual offenses above are magnified by the enforcement architecture the bill builds around them.

•  Asset Freezes on Probable Cause Alone (Section 18)

  The bill designates espionage and related offenses as unlawful activities under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, authorizing the AMLC, on its own initiative or at the request of the National Security Adviser, to investigate, freeze, and pursue forfeiture of the property or funds of anyone believed, on probable cause, to be committing, attempting, conspiring in, or facilitating an offense, notwithstanding existing bank secrecy protections. This is the same financial-surveillance machinery already used to disrupt foreign-funded development and human rights organizations, now extended to any group a security agency merely suspects of an espionage-adjacent activity.

  
  

• Deportation and Court-Martial Without Additional Safeguards (Section 14)

  Foreign nationals convicted under the Act face automatic deportation and a permanent bar on re-entry, exposing the international humanitarian and development workers who regularly partner with local civil society organizations to the bill’s broad and vaguely worded offenses. Every convicted government official, meanwhile, faces perpetual disqualification from public office, foreclosing any distinction between a genuine security breach and a good-faith act of accountability.

• Layering Cybercrime Penalties onto Every Offense (Section 20)

  Any offense in the bill committed through information and communication technology, which today describes nearly all reporting, documentation, and communication, additionally triggers the heavier penalties under Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act, compounding an already severe penalty structure.

Violations of International Human Rights Frameworks and Treaties

The provisions and mechanisms embedded within HB 9642 directly conflict with international human rights covenants and declarations to which the Philippines is a state party and signatory.

• Freedom of Expression and Information (ICCPR Article 19 and UDHR Article 19)

  Both instruments guarantee the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds regardless of frontiers. The elastic definition of espionage in Section 5(a), and the criminalization of recording and mapping in Section 11, directly restrict the seeking and imparting of information that underlies journalism, research, and human rights reporting.

  
  

• Right to Privacy (ICCPR Article 17)

  Article 17 prohibits arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy and correspondence. Section 17’s authorization of wiretapping and compelled disclosure of communications metadata on the basis of mere suspicion, without adversarial review, falls squarely within this prohibited interference.

• Presumption of Innocence (ICCPR Article 14(2) and UDHR Article 11(1))

  Both instruments guarantee that everyone charged with a criminal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law. Section 5’s proviso, which presumes an official custodian disclosed a classified matter whenever it surfaces in unauthorized hands, and Section 13’s liability standard of “reasonable ground to believe or suspect,” each shifts the burden of proof onto the accused rather than the State.

  
  

• Freedom of Movement (ICCPR Article 12)

  Article 12 protects the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose one’s residence. Section 15’s unchecked executive power to designate any area a prohibited place, without independent review, allows the State to restrict access to and documentation of sites of legitimate public and humanitarian concern.

  
  

• International Assistance and Cooperation (ICESCR Article 2(1))

  Under Article 2(1), states undertake to take steps, including through international assistance and cooperation, to progressively realize economic, social, and cultural rights. Section 14’s deportation and permanent re-entry ban for foreign nationals convicted under the bill’s broadly worded offenses chills the international development, humanitarian, and human rights partnerships that Article 2(1) calls on states to encourage rather than criminalize.

  
  

• Compliance with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (Articles 6 and 12)

  Article 6 guarantees the right to know, seek, obtain, receive, and hold information on human rights, and Article 12 obliges the State to protect human rights defenders from reprisal for exercising that right. The bill’s criminalization of documentation, possession, and disclosure, together with the “disloyalty” provisions aimed at whistleblowers within government, functions as a source of harassment and self-censorship contrary to this global standard.

Concrete Implications for Civil Society, Humanitarian and Development Work, and the Media

The provisions above translate into specific operational risks for the groups the Defend NGOs Alliance represents and works alongside.

For Civil Society Organizations

Grants, program funds, and partner disbursements become vulnerable the moment the AMLC opens an inquiry on probable cause alone (Section 18), well before any charge is filed or proven. Routine activities such as community consultations, fact-finding missions, or legal aid extended to individuals merely suspected of an offense expose staff to liability under the aiding, abetting, or harboring provisions (Sections 12 and 13). Communications with international donors and partner organizations fall within reach of the wiretapping and metadata provisions in Section 17.

For Humanitarian and Development Workers

Needs assessments, site mapping, and photographic documentation near military installations, checkpoints, or areas the government designates as prohibited places (Sections 3(h), 11, and 15) carry the same ten-to-twelve-year penalty as espionage itself. Foreign humanitarian and development personnel, who make up a significant share of international partnerships with local organizations, face deportation and a permanent re-entry ban if convicted under the bill’s broadly worded offenses (Section 14), discouraging the cross-border cooperation that disaster response and development work depend on.

For Media and Journalists

Receiving, holding, or publishing leaked material on matters of public interest already falls within the “dealing with classified matter” offense in Section 5(a), with no public-interest or press-freedom defense anywhere in the bill. Government sources weighing whether to speak to a reporter now do so knowing that unauthorized possession of a document elsewhere is treated as prima facie evidence against them (Section 5, proviso), a disincentive that reaches the whistleblower before it reaches the journalist. Source confidentiality, the foundation of investigative reporting, is further undermined by Section 17’s compelled disclosure of call, text, and internet metadata from telecommunications and internet service providers.

Defending Democratic Spaces

The New Espionage Act does not make the Philippines more secure against genuine espionage. Instead, as passed, it hands the State a broadly worded tool with severe penalties and weak safeguards that can be turned against the journalists, human rights defenders, development and humanitarian workers whose scrutiny a security state finds inconvenient.

The Defend NGOs Alliance urges the Senate to:

1. Reject or Substantially Amend the Bill: Withhold Senate concurrence until the bill’s definition of “classified matter” and “espionage” are narrowed to require clear intent to injure national security, the presumption-of-guilt proviso in Section 5 is removed, penalties are made proportionate to actual harm and intent, and surveillance under Section 17 requires adversarial judicial authorization rather than an ex parte order.

2. Enact Human-Rights Based Legislative Measures: Insert an explicit public-interest and whistleblower defense covering journalists, researchers, and human rights defenders acting in good faith, and pair any genuine espionage law with the long-pending Whistleblower Protection Act, the Human Rights Defenders Protection Bill, and a robust, genuinely open Freedom of Information Law across all branches of government.

3. Invest in Non-Legal and Institutional Solutions: Rather than expanding presumptions of guilt, surveillance powers, and asset-freezing authority over public scrutiny, the state should strengthen civilian oversight of the security sector and build genuine accountability that earns public trust rather than compels silence.

Genuine national security is built on public trust, transparency, and accountable institutions. It is not secured through a presumption of guilt hung over anyone who asks a question the State would rather not answer.¹ A government secure in its legitimacy does not need the threat of life sentence to deter legitimate public scrutiny. #

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¹ The bill’s proviso deems an official’s unauthorized loss of custody over a classified matter as prima facie evidence that the official disclosed it, shifting the burden onto the official to prove otherwise rather than requiring the State to prove disclosure occurred. This is the reverse of the presumption of innocence guaranteed under the Bill of Rights and international human rights law.