On FB's Freedom of Expression

CEBU, Philippines - I was awakened by the artificial cold-soothing breeze produced by the electric-fan. I was planning to read some Supreme Court decisions, and my target was to finish the case of Genosa. I was still on my pajamas, shivering when my finger pressed the CPU’s button. I knew that if I would press it, another disparaging, worse, words unbecoming, await my ever tireless “read ‘em” instinct.

And so I navigated the search-engine, opened Facebook and Supreme Court’s website. In front of me was the posts of my close, not so-close friends, and those who are not known to me even up-close. I started browsing, and was doing my routine “read ‘em”. I did it for a while until I came across his  posts.

I already promised to myself not to hide, delete nor block anybody for any undesirable posts, comments, or remarks addressed to another party in this widely-acclaimed social network because I believe in one’s self-executing right to exercise his freedom of expression. This has been embedded in our Constitution, and has been immortalized by Voltaire in his infamous “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to death your right to defend it” statement. But with or without the support of the Constitution, I am inclined to respecting one’s feelings and grievances.

So I continued. Words flowed while I remembered the two elements of this self-executing right. The first is the freedom from prior restraint which gives leeway to every person to say whatever he wants to say without being prevented nor restricted in advance. The second is the freedom from subsequent punishment, which secures someone’s right to a free discussion of any event without any liability.

The former is freely exercised by every FB member posting every move one makes, about to make, and has already made. The latter is also manifested, bearing in mind that one may not be held liable or incur the ire of any person he may criticize.

But this freedom is not absolute. This freedom may be legally regulated in the interest of the public. And one might say, “Hey,it’s fair comment”. But might I say that fair comment means, according to jurisprudence, that while in general, a public defamatory statement is deemed false, because every man is presumed innocent until his guilt be judicially proven, and every discreditable imputation is deemed malicious, nevertheless, when this is directed against a public person in his public capacity, it is not necessarily actionable. For such discreditable imputation to be actionable, it must be either a false allegation of facts or a comment based on false suppositions. If the comment is based on established facts, then it is immaterial that such comments happen to be mistaken, especially when it is reasonably inferred from the facts.

But for God’s sakes, he was maliciously imputing said person on his wall!

I then asked myself, “Why am I talking to myself?” Someone posted it here so I need to respect the work of its author and it is up to me to let it stay on my home page or just ditch it off my wall. But then again, as Paulo Coelho posits, a philosophical question would ensue, should I respect these individuals’ freedom of expression, which while they freely exercise it, ruins someone’s reputation? Or should I respect my heart’s call of hiding it from my wall?

I continued reading. I was laughing at the thought that I am giving so much emphasis on things that would only wither my morning dew’s positive vibration. But of course, freedom is not freedom from responsibility, but freedom with responsibility. While a person, as a citizen of this nation, and as a netizen of the worldwide web is entitled to criticize another, this does not give him the unbridled licence to insult and malign someone and bring the latter into disrepute. I wished I had the facility of language as the Supreme Court Justices have, to say that the use of intemperate language and unkind ascription can hardly be justified nor can it have a place in the dignity of any other person. Free expression, after all, must not be used as a vehicle to satisfy one’s irrational obsession to demean, ridicule, degrade and destroy someone else.

Finally, Paulo Coelho’s words shed light on my ever wandering mind. Coelho said, “Don’t fall in to just playing a role”— an illustration can be made by just letting it stay on my wall.

Moved by these words, I clicked the upper right corner of his posts, hit the “hide all posts” button and realized that “right is right even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it”.After all, it’s always my right to choose whether or not to ditch him off my wall.