Anti Planking Act of 2011 - Philippines

Anti-Planking Act of 2011 by Congressman Winston "Winnie" Castelo

Philippines' Anti-Planking Bill of 2011

First, planking also known as the "Lying Down Game", a position where a person pose on a camera while lying face down, with both hands facing the sides of the body on an unusual place. Planking became popular on North East England and quickly spread throughout the world with the help of internet.

Planking is also referred as a simple fad that was practice mostly by teenagers, however, the internet shows that planking enthusiasts ranges on almost all ages.

Here in the Philippines, Filipino who knew that their country is regard to be the unofficial networking sites capital of the world didn't want to be just left behind with this fad. Filipino even created a facebook fan page dedicated for the activity, the Planking PINAS. The facebook fan page had now reached 87,296 members as of this writing and still counting.

However, it seems that some politicians are riding along with the trends' popularity as one congressman here in the Philippines had authored a law that prohibits planking here in our country. The new proposed bill said that individual or group of individual that caught while on the planking pose would be sanctioned.

"..and appropriate sanctions be applied for violations thereof." -An extract from section 2 of the proposed bill.

Planking was defined by the Anti-planking Act of 2011 proposed bill, which said that...

"Under this Act, planking is when a student or group of students lies face down in unusual locations especially in streets or other public places, keeping the hands along the body and the feet outstretched and especially where such act is meant as a form of redress of grievance against government." -Under section 3 of the proposed bill.

The thing here is the word "especially" because (as we can see it) by using the word especially, that would mean that you can also be sanction even though your planking isn't a form of redress of grievance against the government, or to any person that is. If they would just rephrase the section 3 which defines planking then it would be clear that the prohibited planking is planking which has an intention to oppose the government. This clear definition can only be achive if they would just remove the word "especially".

Also, the nature on why did this proposed bill was made raised many eyebrows. It appears that the proposed law by Congressman Winston Castelo was made is because of the streets protests where protesters last Monday, September 20, 2011, planked in the middle of the streets with their banned that signify their fight against mainly on the oil price hikes.

Filipino however questioned the newly draft bill as they said that the act is too exagerrated than the act of planking itself.

keywordspeak.com team thoughts - We believe that the congressmen of the country should think of more important matters that wasting their time for some stupid unneeded proposals. The idea of planking is to have fun, police should arrest anyone if they deliberately hinder traffic anywhere in the country, planking or even just simply lying or sitting in the middle of the street.

GMAnews.tv' user "PMC95" have this to say to the plankers who protested and block the traffic last Monday. "Sorry to sound insensitive pero ano ang kawalan sa bansa kung mamatay ang mga taong gumagawa ng planking sa mga delikadong lugar. The country can only gain from losing this idiots. Kabawasan ito sa mga pabigat sa bansa. A law is not required.".

One user named "xsend7" said - "Binoto nyo yan! Kaya magtiis kayo! Bwa hahaha..."

Here is the proposed Anti-Planking Act of 2011 Quezon City representative, Winston Castelo.

Photo: congress.gov.ph

September 20th, 2011

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. This Act shall be known as the “Anti-Planking Act of 2011”.

SEC. 2. A universal Code of Student Conduct is hereby prescribed where planking as a form of redress of grievance be strictly prohibited and appropriate sanctions be applied for violations thereof.

SEC. 3. Under this Act, planking is when a student or group of students lies face down in unusual locations especially in streets or other public places, keeping the hands along the body and the feet outstretched and especially where such act is meant as a form of redress of grievance against government.

SEC. 4 Every bonafide student from any school, college or university shall conduct himself with high degree of discipline and propriety.

SEC. 5. The Department of Education in the case of elementary and high school students and the Commission on Higher Education in the case of college students shall draft a universal Code of Student Conduct to carry out the provisions of this Act.

Further, DepEd and CHED, respectively shall issue appropriate rules and regulations to effectively carry out intent and purpose of this Act.

SEC. 6. This Act shall take effect ninety (90) days after its publication in the Official Gazette and in at least three (3) newspapers of general circulation.

Approved,