Cybersex as Affective Labour: Critical Interrogations of the Philippine ICT Framework and the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012
This chapter examines the underside of the Philippine Information Society the cybersex phenomenon. In looking at cybersex, we take stock of the Philippine ICT framework's aim of building "a people centered, inclusive, development oriented Information Society" through the state promotion of Filipinos as "world class" workers and citizens. We also look at how the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 complements this state policy aspiration. We argue that the cybersex phenomenon in the Philippines illustrates how institutional development strategies could inadvertently already marginalized sectors of society. We use the perspective of affective labour to argue that, because ICT led development failed for these sectors, the response is an illegal service industry that also makes use of, if not feeds off of, the same technological infrastructure largely supported by foreign capital. Cybersex is a potent example of how the marginalized learn to transform conditions of exclusion and illegality into creative, practical, and thus, productive strategies of survival. Cybersex is not the solution to achieving a decent quality of life, but the existence, persistence, up to the embodiment of the workers of this phenomenon signifies that the State's vision of ICT for development is not living up to its promise of socioeconomic upliftment; and through the institutionalized uses of technology, a culture of creative ICT use is constrained rather than promoted. Cybersex thus foregrounds some problematic ramifications of the present ICT framework and the institutional mechanisms supporting it. It puts to question the goal of inclusive development in Philippine ICT policymaking and legislation, hinting at the risks and repercussions of creating an information society under the neoliberal market economy. Addressing this challenge, we propose, begins with a reconsideration of cybersex as a form of ICT facilitated affective labour and learning from the multifaceted narratives that constitute informal uses of ICTs.