“The Court clearly supports its conclusion that Badoy did not exercise her right to freedom of expression, she in fact abused it”
THIS is a three-part series on a recent Supreme Court decision.
I wrote this article with Ally Munda, who works as a paralegal of my law office, La. Viña-Zarate and Associates. She is a third year student at the University of the Philippines College of Law
What happens when two cornerstone rights of our democratic society seemingly come into conflict?
Freedom of expression, including the right to free speech, is Constitutionally protected and given preferential status among our guaranteed rights.
It is one of the rights we instinctively know and intimately hold close.
It’s a “should be” – this is the way it should be; this is something that must be allowed.
As individuals, we treasure it as a recognition of our place and power in the larger picture of society. Our ability to speak truth to power.
In the same fundamental law, the sanctity of the dignity of our legal system, of our courts and judiciary, is affirmed.
The courts are how we defend our rights from invasions and abuses of others, after all.
For as much as we need to be able to turn to public fora or media and publications to air our grievances with decisions and actions of the government, we also need to have faith that any abuse committed against us can be addressed through the rule of law.
We need to know we are not alone in protecting our own rights, our privacy, our person, our property. We have the courts to rely upon whenever we need help.
It is a delicate and intricate dance between the state and the individual, where the rights of both must be protected and upheld.
However, in this case, some toes were stepped on.
Through two petitions, A.M. 22-09-16-SC and G.R. 263384, the Supreme Court was tasked to settle the case of Lorraine Marie T. Badoy, former spokesperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). Badoy, who boasts a significant social media following, posted a series of social media rants which attacked the Sept. 21, 2022 135-page decision of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 19 presiding judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar.
Magdoza-Malagar’s decision ruled to dismiss the Department of Justice petition seeking to declare the Community Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army a terrorist group.
Previously, these writers wrote a series explaining the ratio behind the decision.
The ruling to dismiss the petition by Judge Magdoza-Malagar drew its fair share of criticism from the public, not just Badoy.
This was not surprising, given the highly controversial and political subject matter of the petition.
However, Badoy’s particular exercise of her right to have an opinion gravely overstepped the bounds of what is allowable and caught the attention of the Supreme Court for, among others, its calls to violence against the person and family of Judge Magdoza-Malagar and its insults against the court.
Badoy’s disagreement with the decision was to be expected, given her personal politics and former position within the previous administration.
And her right to disagree is well-protected and even encouraged to be exercised.
However, how she acted on these feelings of discontent led her to find herself at the center of a legal maelstrom where she drew strong reactions from members of legal institutions, practicing lawyers, and the Supreme Court itself following her incendiary social media comments.
Now, she has been held liable.
The decision, written by Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, highlights the specific words and passages from Badoy’s posts that cross the line into unprotected speech.
The Court underlines the exact points where Badoy goes over the line and how.
To support its conclusions, the Court also discusses the right to freedom of expression, the power of the courts to hold people in contempt, the sanctity of the judiciary as a right of the people, and the exact tests used to determine what speech is not and cannot be protected.
In this way, the Court clearly supports its conclusion that Badoy did not exercise her right to freedom of expression, she in fact abused it.
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