Freedom returns to elections

 Remember that very controversial "Team Patay/Team Buhay" tarpaulin that the Bacolod bishop caused to be displayed outside the Bacolod Cathedral just before the 2013 elections? The bishop used it to campaign for or against candidates depending on their stand on the Reproductive Health Law. The Comelec frowned on the tactic and ordered the tarpaulin removed, prompting the bishop to go to court.

Well, the Supreme Court has finally ruled on the matter, and it sided with the bishop. The high court said the Comelec order to have the tarpaulin removed was unconstitutional and the poll watchdog had no power to regulate the free expression of private citizens who are neither candidates nor members of political parties. It also assailed the Comelec for violating the right of the petitioner to free speech.

The Supreme Court decision is interesting not only because of the uniqueness of the circumstances surrounding the case -- it is not everyday that you see a priest or a bishop openly taking a political stand over a social and religious issue and using unconventional means to grab attention -- but also because of the impact the decision may have on the expressing of opinions in general during the campaign season.

I say interesting because I can still remember distinctly that prior to that very same 2013 elections, we here in The Freeman requested for a briefing by the Comelec. Considering that the Comelec has issued so many rules that impact on media, and not wanting ourselves to get into trouble over these rules, we specifically wanted to find out the limits on where we can go as a newspaper.

And it was to the general dismay of everybody who attended when the Comelec regional director at the time told us to our faces what we can do, which was almost nothing, and what we cannot do, which was almost everything. That is an exaggeration, of course. But it nevertheless comes close to the feeling we got when told, for example, that before a columnist can write a column, he must first notify the Comelec about what he intends to write if the intended article deals with the elections.

We did not know if the Comelec was serious or not. And maybe we will never find out if it was, especially now that the Supreme Court has categorically cited the Comelec to be in error in its appreciation of where the limits of free speech and free expression lay. But at the time, nobody tried to test the seriousness of the Comelec.

That nobody actually complied with the Comelec requirement of prior notification regarding a column's subject matter is small consolation in light of my own personal observation that virtually all columns written in relation to the 2013 elections that were subsequent to the prior notification rule all lacked the "Storm und Drang" that normally made these columns interesting.

Instead they were mostly calm, flat and dry, hardly worth the paper they were written on. Columnists may have thumbed their noses at the Comelec by refusing to notify it ahead of their subject matters. But it was just as well that they did not. For what was there to notify Comelec about that would perk its interest when most of what everybody wrote were subject matters not far removed from the birds and the bees.

I did tread on thin Comelec ice myself, secretly awaiting to be summoned. But for the most part, most everyone hewed to the Comelec line, and in the process abdicated on their sworn duty to tell the truth as they see it, which is what democratic commentary is all about. With the new Supreme Court decision affirming the supremacy of free speech and free expression, expect the vibrancy of the press to be palpable again.

Free speech and free expression are beautiful things. But they are beautiful only to the extent that they are exercised responsibly. I have been a journalist for more than 30 years and I have never been sued, except for the two times I had to be included in the suit because of the position of authority that I occupied, even if on both occasions that the "offending" items came out, I was actually on leave.

In the more than 30 years that I have been a journalist, I have always been the maverick who would refuse to join the pack in asserting freedom of the press to near absoluteness. I firmly believe that no freedom is absolute, even in this profession that I have freely chosen. In the Maguindanao massacre, and in the Charlie Hebdo incident many years later, I condemned the murders and grieved over the senseless deaths of innocents. But I left myself out of the "press" part of both.

In the Maguindanao massacre, I just cannot see where the "press" part is for five men from a single news outfit to cover a single event. The same with Charlie Hebdo, whose killings I condemn, but whose "press" part I cannot recognize and refuse to subscribe. And I thank Pope Francis for thinking the same way and making it clear to everyone, in as plainly as possible, that while the killings were unjustified -- still "if you insult my mother, you can expect a punch."