Waiting would have been prudent

It is easy to appreciate the intention of a proposed provincial ordinance seeking to ban the possession, sale, and distribution of tabloid and similar materials that contain immoral and indecent pictures or text.

It is nevertheless a clear overreaction by the provincial board to an earlier problem the Cebu City Anti-Indecency Board had with two Cebuano tabloids. The CAIB feels that two columns published in these tabloids are pornographic and filed charges in court.

It would have been prudent of the provincial board to await resolution of these cases. But since it went ahead anyway and in fact passed the proposed ordinance on first reading, the better part of prudence is to await what happens to that proposal as well.

Still, it comes as a surprise to some people that, with the exception of provincial board member Jose Ribomapil Holganza Jr., no one in the board, especially the lawyers, ever saw the potential constitutional, legal and logical infirmity of the proposed measure.

For clearly the proposed ordinance treads on certain constitutional and legal grey areas that are highly contentious and debatable and thus best left to the appropriate courts to resolve and decide upon. 

This is not to say that the provincial board should not have introduced the proposal. But at least delaying action would have given it time to digest the implications of its actions and avoid the possibility of coming up with an infirm measure, thus saving it a lot of red faces.

For there is no legislating morality, it being a matter of perception. The best that can be done is set parameters to define what are acceptable and what are not. Only after first having established those parameters can the provincial board come up with a workable measure.

But to be able to define acceptable parameters, it would have been best if the provincial board first waited to hear what the courts had to say about the matter, for its proper guidance and appreciation.

Or maybe it should have listened more intently to what Holganza had to say. Holganza said a mouthful about the issue, all of them making sense and to the point. Holganza was the cooler head amid such an impassioned response. He should have been heeded. Here is Holganza:

“The absence of a glossary of terms could lead to subjective interpretation that could result to gross violations of civil and human rights.” Holganza is the chairman of the committee on human rights in the provincial board.

Holganza went on: “The picture of skimpily clad men and women on the front pages of some publications might be abhorrent to some as it is eye candy to others.” He wonders if billboards and calendars that contain similar pictures should also be banned.

One of the most engaging arguments of Holganza against the proposed measure has nothing to do with legality but with logic and practicality: “If we prohibit the display of these images in tabloids, what are we to do with the real thing? Are we going to ban the wearing of bikinis and swimwear in our public beaches and private resorts?” Holganza, of course, has a point there. Because what people see in the front pages of the tabloids are virtually the same ones they see in beaches and resorts.

And that is where the overreaction can be clearly seen. Because the incidents that provoked all these — the supposed “pornographic” content of certain columns in tabloids — are not or may not exactly be the same things sought to be banned by the proposed ordinance.

The sight of a skimpily clad woman, whether in person or in a photograph, is subjective. It can make some people feel scandalized. But to others it is what the world is today. So, again, it would have been best if the board at least waited for the courts to make some definitions.