2022 IMPLEMENTING RULES AND REGULATIONS OF REPUBLIC ACT (R.A.) NO. 9208 (THE "ANTI-TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS ACT OF 2003"), AS AMENDED BY R.A. NO. 10364 (THE EXPANDED ANTI-TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS ACT OF 2012) AND FURTHER AMENDED BY R.A. NO. 11862 (THE EXPANDED ANTI-TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS ACT OF 2022)
Nothing in these rules and regulations shall be interpreted as a restriction of the freedom od association, freedom of religion and the right to travel for purposes not contrary to law as guaranteed by the Constitution.
(a) Act - refers to Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9208, as amended by R.A. No. 10364 and R.A. No. 11862.
(b) Child - refers to a person below eighteen (18) years of age or one who is over eighteen (18) but is unable to fully take care of, or protect himself/herself from abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation, or discrimination because of a physical or mental disability or condition.
(c) Child Laundering - refers to an act of stealing and selling a child to adopting parents under false pretenses and using schemes such as falsifying the child's details or manipulating the child's origins to make the child appear an orphan or foundling.
(d) Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Material or Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAEM or CSAM) - refers to photos, image, videos, recordings, streams, or any other representation or form of media, depicting acts of sexual abuse and exploitation of a child or representation of a child as a sexual object, whether or not generated digitally or by, through, and with the use of information and communications technology. It shall also include materials that focus on real or simulated genitalia or other private body parts of a child.
(e) Children involved in Armed Conflict (CIAC) - refers to children who are either forcible, compulsorily recruited, or who voluntarily joined a government force or any armed group in any capacity. They may participate directly in armed hostilities as combatants or fighters; or indirectly through support roles such as scouts, spies, saboteurs, decoys, checkpoint assistants, couriers, messengers, porters, cooks or as sexual objects.
(f) Communications - refers to any spoken or written conversations, exchanges, discussions, data, information, or messages for interception.
(g) Computer and Other Computer-Related Devices - refers to any device or group of interconnected or related services, one or more which, pursuant to a program, performs automated processing of data. It covers any type of device with data processing capabilities, including computers and mobile phones.
(h) Computer System - refers to any device or group of interconnected or related devices, one or more of which, pursuant to a program, performs automated processing of data. It covers any type of device with data processing capabilities including computers and mobile phones. The device consisting of hardware and software may include input, output process, and storage components which may stand alone or be connected in a network or other similar devices.It also includes computer data storage devices or media.
(i) Council - refers to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) created under Section 20 of the Act.
(j) Data - refers to both:
(1) Content Data - the substance, meaning or purport of the communication, or the message or information being conveyed by the communication, other than traffic data; and
(2) Traffic Data or Non-Content Data - any computer data other than the content of the communication, including the communication's origin, destination, route, time, date, size, duration, or type of underlying service.
(k) Debt Bondage - refers to the pledging by the debtor of his/her personal services or labor or those of a person under his/her control as security or payment for a debt, when the length and nature of services is not clearly defined or when the value of the services, as reasonably assessed, is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt.
(l) Electronic 0r Digital Evidence - refers to evidence, the use of which is sanctioned by existing rules of evidence, in ascertaining in a judicial proceeding, the truth respecting a matter of fact, which evidence is received, recorded, transmitted, stored, processed, retrieved or produced electronically.
(m) Extradition - refers to the surrender of an accused or convicted person from one state to another state pursuant to an extradition treaty for criminal investigation or prosecution, imposition of penalty or service of sentence for an extraditable offense.
(n) Forced Labor - refers to the extraction of work or services from any person by means of enticement, violence, intimidation or threat, use of force or coercion, including deprivation of freedom, abuse of authority or moral ascendancy, debt-bondage or deception including any work or service extracted from any person under the menace of penalty.
(o) Foreign Service Pot (FSPs) - refers to Philippine embassies, missions, consulates general and other foreign service establishments maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
(p) Information and Communications Technology (ICT) - refers to the totality of electronic means to access, create, collect, store, process, receive, transmit, present, and disseminate information.
(q) Interception - refers to the act of listening to, recording, monitoring, or surveillance of the content of communications, including procuring of the content data, either directly, through access and use of a computer system, or through the use of electronic eavesdropping or tapping devices, at the same time that the communications is occurring.
(r) Internet Intermediaries - refers to a natural or juridical person, or entity that provides infrastructure, platforms, access to host, transmit and index content, products and services originated by third parties on the internet. It includes among others:
(1) Internet Service Providers (ISPs);
(2) Data processing and web hosting providers, including domain name registrars;
(3) Internet search engine and portals;
(4) E-commerce intermediaries;
(5) Internet payment system providers, whether supervised by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) or not; and
(6) Participative network platform providers or social media intermediaries.
(s) Involuntary Servitude - refers to a condition of enforced and compulsory service induced by means of any scheme, plan or pattern, intended to cause a person to believe that if he/she did not enter into or continue in such condition, he/she or another person would suffer serious harm or other forms of abuse or physical restraint, or threat of abuse or harm, or coercion including depriving access to travel documents and withholding salaries, or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
(t) Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Children (OSAEC) - refers to the use of digital or analog communication and ICT as means to abuse and exploit children sexually, which includes cases in which contact child abuse or exploitation offline is combined with an online component. This can also include the production, dissemination, and possession of CSAEM; online grooming of children for sexual purposes; sexual extortion of children; sharing image-based sexual abuse; commercial sexual exploitation of children; exploitation of children through online prostitution; and live-streaming of sexual abuse, with or without the consent of the victim.
(u) Pornography - refers to any representation through publication, exhibition, cinematography, indecent shows, information technology, or by whatever means, of a person engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a person primarily for sexual purposes; Provided, That when a child is involved, the material shall be considered child sexual abuse and exploitation material as defined under paragraph (d) of this section.
(v) Port of entry and exit - refers to international airports and/or seaports designated by the Commissioner of Bureau of Immigration (BI), from among the ports of entry and exit designated by law, to be used as an entry point for arriving foreigners and Filipino nationals from another country to the Philippines and as an exit point for foreigners and Filipino citizens leaving the country and bound abroad.
(w) Prostitution - refers to any act, transaction, scheme or design involving the use of a person by another, for sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct in exchange for money, profit or any other consideration.
(x) Sex Tourism - refers to a program organized by travel and tourism-related establishments and individuals which consists of tourism packages or activities, utilizing and offering escort and sexual services as enticement for tourists. This includes sexual services and practices offered during rest and recreation periods for members of the military.
(y) Sexual Exploitation - refers to a program organized by travel and tourism-related establishments and individuals which consists of tourism packages or activities, utilizing and offering escort and sexual services as enticement for tourists. This includes sexual services and practices offered during the rest and recreation periods for members of the military.
(y) Sexual Exploitation - refers to any means of actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes or lewd designs, including profiting monetarily, socially, or politically from the sexual exploitation of another, regardless of whether or not consent was given.
(z) Slavery - refers to the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are excised.
(aa) Subscriber's or Registrant's Information - refers to any information contained in the form of computer data or other form that is held by internet intermediaries, relating to the subscribers or registrants who avail of services, other than traffic or content data, and by which any of the following can be established:
(1) The type of communication service used; the technical provisions taken thereto, and the period of service;
(2) The subscriber's or registrant's identity, postal or geographic network address, billing, and payment information that are available on the basis of the service agreement or arrangement; or
(3) Any other available information on the sire of the installation of communication equipment that is available on the basis of the service agreement or arrangement.1aшphi1
(bb) Tourism Enterprises - refers to facilities, services, and attractions involved in tourism, such as travel and tour services; health, wellness, and medical tourism services; tourist transport services, whether for land, sea or air transportation; tour guides; adventure sports services involving sports; such as mountaineering, spelunking, scuba diving, and other sports activities of significant tourism potential; convention organizers; accommodation establishments, including hotels, resorts, apartelles, tourist inns, motels, pension houses, and home stay operators; and tourism estate management services, restaurants, shops and department stores, sports and recreational centers, spas, museums and galleries, theme parks, convention centers, and zoos.
(cc) Traffic Person - refers to a victim of TIP under the Act. This shall also include persons rescued or intercepted from potential TIP situations.
(dd) Trafficking in Persons (TIP) - refers to the recruitment, obtaining, hiring, providing, offering, transportation, transfer, maintaining, harboring, or receipt of persons, with or without the victim's consent of knowledge, within or across national borders, by means of threat, or use of force, or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of position, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the person, or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation which includes at a minimum, the exploitation or the prostitution of others, the engagement of others for the production or distribution, or both, of materials that depict child sexual abuse or exploitation, or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, servitude or the removal or sale of organs.
The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, adoption or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation or when the adoption is induced by any form of consideration for exploitative purposes shall also be considered as 'trafficking in persons' even if it does not involve any of the means set forth in the preceding paragraph.1
