Village Connect
The age of technology is characterized by the explosion of information. We live in an era when access to facts is more convenient and the free-flowing discourse or exchange of ideas is more dynamic. However, the advantages of modern communications and technology bring about issues pertaining to both misinformation and disinformation.
“Misinformation and disinformation are a pandemic in their own right,” Atty. Geronimo L. Sy wrote in his column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in January 2022. “There are several ways to fight this plague. Educating cyber citizens is always the best approach, but not the fastest or easiest thing to do. Like any long-term investment, it requires time, effort, patience, and resources to be able to reap an informed and thinking society in the online world.”
Moreover, with the changing times, what ethical principles shall be observed in the legal practice? The short course ‘Legal Ethics in the Technology Age’ is designed to open the forum. The topic is part of the Legal and Judicial Ethics subject that is offered through the Synchronous MCLE Flexible Lecture Series 6 set in March 2022.
A former Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant Secretary (from 2008 to 2016), Atty. Sy had chaired the Criminal Code Committee, which drafted the modern criminal code and paved the way for the establishment of the Office for Competition and the Office of Cybercrime, which he both headed in 2011 and 2013, respectively.
Prior to those, Atty. Sy served as a Prosecution Attorney for the DOJ from 1999 to 2001 and as a State Prosecutor from 2001 to 2008, wherein he specialized in handling cases involving business fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, cybercrime, and cartels. He was also the Chairperson of the ASEAN Experts Group on Competition from 2013 to 2014. He has been a Convenor at the APEC Competition Policy and Law Group since 2015.
To date, Atty. Sy is a professor of law and a bar reviewer. He is also a lecturer on risk management and corporate governance. On the side, he authors books and writes commentaries as a columnist in a major national broadsheet (Inquirer).
Atty, Sy completed degrees on Bachelor of Science Major in Management Engineering and Juris Doctor Law from the Ateneo de Manila University. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Management from the University of the Philippines.
