Five petitioners have asked the Supreme Court to strike down the government’s nationwide blocking of Discord in September and permanently prohibit authorities from unilaterally imposing similar restrictions on websites and social networking platforms.
Carlo Ople, founder of Creators Against Corruption; businessman and technologist Eliezer “Eli” Rabadon; startup founder and Y Combinator alumnus Francis Plaza; BetterGov.PH co-convenor Christopher Star; and technology and intellectual property lawyer Atty. Arjel P. de Guzman filed a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition on October 1.
The legal action, initiated and supported by the BetterGov.PH community, named Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Rhoel R. Aguda, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) Executive Director Renato A. Paraiso, and National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Commissioner Ella Blanca B. Lopez as respondents.
At the center of the case is the government’s temporary nationwide blocking of Discord and an earlier warning that Reddit could face similar restrictions.
According to the petition, the CICC sent letters to Discord and Reddit on September 21, giving the platforms 24 hours to designate a resident agent or establish a local representative in the Philippines. Paraiso subsequently warned that the platforms could be blocked nationwide for noncompliance.
The following day, Aguda and Paraiso asked the NTC to impose a 15-day “temporary, precautionary suspension” of Discord through geofencing or a similar access-blocking mechanism.
On September 23, the NTC directed internet service providers to block Discord for 15 days. Users of several major Philippine internet services subsequently reported losing access to the platform even as Discord reported no global outage.
The restriction was lifted on September 24 following a meeting between government officials and Discord executives. Paraiso later apologized to users affected and inconvenienced by the block. A CICC official also acknowledged in a Radyo Pilipinas interview that the agency had not initially appreciated the extent to which Discord was being used for business and education in addition to gaming.
The petitioners are asking the Supreme Court to annul the CICC’s September 22 directive and the NTC’s September 23 memorandum, declare that the officials committed grave abuse of discretion, and issue a writ of prohibition permanently preventing them from imposing unilateral, wholesale and nationwide blocking of websites and social networking platforms through geofencing or similar methods.
“The State’s noble crusade against cybercrime cannot be used as a blunt instrument to demolish the digital public square,” the petition states.
The petitioners contend that the government’s actions amounted to unconstitutional prior restraint by cutting millions of Filipinos off from communication platforms without judicial review or due process.
They cited estimates of between 6 million and 7.8 million monthly active Discord users in the Philippines and more than 15 million Reddit users. For freelancers, virtual assistants, business process outsourcing workers, developers, students and digital creators, the petition describes such platforms as an important communications backbone of the country’s digital and gig economy.
Among their principal arguments is that neither the NTC’s mandate nor Republic Act No. 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, authorizes the respondents to block an entire online platform. They also invoke the Supreme Court’s decision in Disini v. Secretary of Justice, which struck down a provision allowing authorities to restrict or block access to computer data without a court order.
The petitioners further argue that blocking an entire platform constitutes prior restraint on speech because it affects millions of lawful users alongside allegedly unlawful content. They claim the action violated due process because no court authorized the restriction, violated equal protection by penalizing a broad class of users because of the conduct of a few, and failed the constitutional test of strict scrutiny.
According to the petition, the government could instead employ narrower measures against unlawful activity, including targeted content takedowns, account suspensions, preservation and disclosure orders, and restrictions on specific URLs.
Although access to Discord has since been restored, the petitioners maintain that the case is not moot because the issue is “capable of repetition yet evading review.” They argue that online platforms can be blocked and subsequently restored so quickly that courts may have little opportunity to review the government’s actions before a restriction is lifted.
The petition also points to previous government warnings involving other online services, including Roblox, and statements by Paraiso that excluding platforms from the Philippines remains an available option.
Calling the practice a potential “wash-rinse-repeat” cycle, the petitioners are asking the Supreme Court to establish constitutional safeguards governing any future attempt by the government to impose what they described as a digital “kill switch.”
“While we recognize and fully support the government’s mandate to protect minors and combat cybercrime, the methods employed to realize such a mandate must not trample on the people’s fundamental rights,” the petitioners said in a joint statement.
“The internet is the modern public square. Digital liberties are not secondary privileges — they are extensions of our fundamental human rights,” they added. “The state’s noble goal of pursuing criminals must not be used as a Trojan horse to normalize mass censorship.”
The petitioners and BetterGov.PH said they are calling for measures that allow the government to protect online communities and combat cybercrime while preserving the constitutional rights and digital liberties of Filipinos.