Blogger Renee Karunungan is no stranger to cyberbullying. After criticizing then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte before the May 2016 polls, she received a slew of threats on Facebook - including rape and death threats.

She said the messages ranged from simple bullying - criticizing her looks or intelligence - to grave ones threatening to look for her and kill her.

"I remember there was one message where he has a photo with a gun saying, ‘I know where you live and I will find you'," she told Mornings@ANC on Thursday.

The messages, which she posted on her Facebook profile, took a toll on Karunungan, making her fear for her life.

"Somehow, [sic] it silences you but at the same time you feel the fear because what if they do find me?" she said.

She later filed cases against the erring netizens before the National Bureau of Investigation and the Commission on Elections.

There are 20 pending criminal cases with the former and 14 cases of election offenses under the Omnibus Election Code with the latter. Both agencies are still verifying the identities of the netizens and will issue subpoenas against them thereafter, she said.

Karunungan believes Facebook users who threaten to rape or kill you are not exercising free speech. "Free speech always comes with responsibility," she said.

Micheline Rama of DAKILA Philippine Collective for Modern Day Heroes said a rape threat or death threat is the same, whether it is done online or in real life. She said online users have the same rights in the real world and on social media.

"You’re free to express yourself online, but you’re not free to commit crimes which include harassment and threats. Those are basic things to remember," she said.

For Rama, the anonymity and lack of personal connections in the cyber world enable trolls to spur online hatred.

"There’s also a sense of a community. If you see somebody else doing it, and you start ganging up on a person and that’s how you create victims like Renee, where there’s massive amounts of hate directed at just one person," she added.

Apart from strengthening their personal security online--like keeping their passwords strong and their privacy settings strict--

Rama said netizens must nurture a culture of empathy and respect online "and that includes not using hate speech yourself."

She also advises against "feeding the trolls" by responding to their messages, noting that adding fuel to the flame would only create more hate.

"If you try yourself to be more disciplined and not say, ‘Just because this person is calling me names, I have to return in kind.’ No, you have to step back and say, ‘I will treat someone with respect even if they’re not doing the same to me.’ That way we can try to maintain a level of civility online," she said.