Freedom of Speech and Expression - My Simple Commentary

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Hello everyone, this is my first time to post in this community, I hope I could submit more often.

I find this community as a good avenue to share ideas and opinions on things beneficial to all of us. I'm sure by advocating this community we will learn from each other's contents. So I encourage everyone to share your knowledge and expertise that could help and inspire people.

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. - Malcolm X

Good that we have this kind of regular assignment in school, I think I can share my works here for additional info and knowledge on some points or issues.

We have varieties of topics so I think there will be contents that would tackle issues applicable to most of us.

In a way we could learn something, I just hope this will pave a way to a healthy conversation in my comment box below. So please feel free to leave your valuable insights below especially to my Filipino friends here on #HIVE.

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So for my first topic, it is actually about freedom of speech and expression. So I think this will be applicable to all wherever you are in the world although I am talking here more specifically about our country Philippines, I know that such a right is universal and is inherent to all human beings.

So we were given three articles to read on and were asked to give our legal commentary, you may check the articles below and perhaps share your own opinion:

I have to start citing a particular provision in the 1987 Philippine Constitution which I think is also followed in most of the countries especially the US. Our constitution was patterned to the constitution of the United States.

Section 4, Article 3, 1987 Philippines Constitution. No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

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The freedom of expression is a universal right, journalists in their day to day work are simply exercising their right to free speech. Such a right should be adhered to and uphold.

The first two articles of the assignment clearly talk about how the government, particularly in the person of the President, fails to adhere to or promote the fundamental rights of the journalist in particular. Both authors claimed that the present government even make the life of the journalist difficult.

This leads me to my two contentions regarding the matter.

First, the President is doing his best in order to combat drugs. There may be human rights violations along the way which may be unacceptable not only to human rights advocates but to the direct families of those victims as well but if we will look at the bigger picture, how drugs ruin the lives of millions of Filipinos young and old with only few who had been benefited.

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The effects of drugs will continue and will ruin even the life of the next generations. If this will not be stopped, we will never achieve peace and harmony in our society. It will be full of fears. Every human will be deprived of their rights, women will not be safe anymore and surely be abused, children are at risk and the lives of the parents may be at risk too.

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I may not be able to discern how the law should be properly administered, such that there will be no more casualties, no more parents crying because they lost a child or two, but in my mind, I also want to eradicate drugs because I believe that by so doing we are also protecting the rights of women against possible abuse, physical violence, rape, and other crimes associated to the use of drugs.

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Secondly, I also believe that the president should not be that vocal in his feelings towards those bad elements as well as his belief in so far as the media is concerned. Chances are he will be misunderstood.

We have the law, in every situation or issues its not the President who will decide, and even in promulgating a new law, personally, I don’t think he can influence the whole legislative department to enact a law that is not practical or beneficial to the common people, and we also have the judiciary who is tasked to determine the validity of every law that has been passed.

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I think its the challenge to concerned lawyers to speak for the truth and to religiously do their part in helping the court decide on things. Like for instance the case of Maria Ressa, she was convicted on cyber libel charges along with the other employee of Rappler but she still has the right to appeal.

RA 10175 along with the functions of the media and or the journalists helps promote what is stated in the constitution, “the right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. Thus both shall be respected.

On the other hand the third article justifies the action of the president and that the Duterte administration upholds the freedom of speech and expression of Filipinos but will not tolerate the spread of misinformation. Which is in line with the rights enumerated in the constitution.

Lastly, the President is also human, he is susceptible to make mistakes, if evidence that he violated the right of the people, I would not be against the thought of punishing him under our Philippine law. And this is true and applicable to whoever will become the President of our country.

So this is my personal opinion regarding the given articles, how about you? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Thank you and God bless us all!

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