Iglesia ni Kristo v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 119673, July 26, 1996

Iglesia ni Kristo v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 119673, July 26, 1996

Iglesia Ni Cristo (“INC”) maintains a TV program which is regularly shown in Channels 2 and 13. The Board of Review for Motion Pictures and Television (“Board”) classified several episodes of the show as “X” or not for public viewing on the ground that they offend and constitute an attack against other religions which is expressly prohibited by law.

In its Petition for Review before the Supreme Court, INC posits that religious programs (like theirs) do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Board.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Freedom of religion has been accorded a preferred status by the framers of our fundamental laws, past and present.  We have affirmed this preferred status well aware that it is “designed to protect the broadest possible liberty of conscience, to allow each man to believe as his conscience directs, to profess his beliefs, and to live as he believes he ought to live, consistent with the liberty of others and with the common good.” We have also laboriously defined in our jurisprudence the intersecting umbras and penumbras of the right to religious profession and worship. 

Justice Frankfurter put it succinctly: ‘The constitutional provision on religious freedom terminated disabilities, it did not create new privileges.  It gave religious liberty, not civil immunity.  Its essence is freedom from conformity to religious dogma, not freedom from conformity to law because of religious dogma.

Television is a medium that reaches even the eyes and ears of children.  The Court reiterates the rule that the exercise of religious freedom can be regulated by the State when it will bring about the clear and present danger of some substantive evil which the State is duty bound to prevent, i.e., serious detriment to the more overriding interest of public health, public morals, or public welfare.  A laissez faire policy on the exercise of religion can be seductive to the liberal mind but history counsels the Court against its blind adoption as religion is and continues to be a volatile area of concern in our country today.

For sure, we shall continue to subject any act pinching the space for the free exercise of religion to a heightened scrutiny but we shall not leave its rational exercise to the irrationality of man.  For when religion divides and its exercise destroys, the State should not stand still.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH vis-à-vis FREEDOM OF RELIGION

Deeply ensconced in our fundamental law is its hostility against all prior restraints on speech, including religious speech.  Hence, any act that restrains speech is hobbled by the presumption of invalidity and should be greeted with furrowed brows. It is the burden of the respondent Board to overthrow this presumption.  If it fails to discharge this burden, its act of censorship will be struck down.

This ruling clearly suppresses petitioner’s freedom of speech and interferes with its right to free exercise of religion.  It misappreciates the essence of freedom to differ as delineated in the benchmark case of Cantwell v. Connecticut, viz.:

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In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief, sharp differences arise.  In both fields, the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor.  To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are prominent in church or state or even to false statements.  But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history that inspite  of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of democracy.

The respondent Board may disagree with the criticisms of other religions by petitioner but that gives it no excuse to interdict such criticisms, however, unclean they may be.  Under our constitutional scheme, it is not the task of the State to favor any religion by protecting it against an attack by another religion.  Religious dogmas and beliefs are often at war and to preserve peace among their followers, especially the fanatics, the establishment clause of freedom of religion prohibits the State from leaning towards any religion.  Vis-a-vis religious differences, the State enjoys no banquet of options.  Neutrality alone is its fixed and immovable stance.  In fine, respondent board cannot squelch the speech of petitioner Iglesia ni Cristo simply because it attacks other religions, even if said religion happens to be the most numerous church in our country.  In a State where there ought to be no difference between the appearance and the reality of freedom of religion, the remedy against bad theology is better theology.  The bedrock of freedom of religion is freedom of thought and it is best served by encouraging the marketplace of dueling ideas.  When the luxury of time permits, the marketplace of ideas demands that speech should be met by more speech for it is the spark of opposite speech, the heat of colliding ideas that can fan the embers of truth.

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TEST

In x-rating the TV program of the petitioner, the respondents failed to apply the clear and present danger rule.  In American Bible Society v. City of Manila, this Court held: “The constitutional guaranty of free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship carries with it the right to disseminate religious information.  Any restraint of such right can be justified like other restraints on freedom of expression on the ground that there is a clear and present danger of any substantive evil which the State has the right to prevent.” In Victoriano vs. Elizalde  Rope  Workers Union, we further ruled that “x x x it is only where it is unavoidably necessary to prevent an immediate and grave danger to the security and welfare of the community that infringement of religious freedom may be justified, and only to the smallest extent necessary to avoid the danger.”

The records show that the decision of the respondent Board, affirmed by the respondent appellate court, is completely bereft of findings of facts to justify the conclusion that the subject video tapes constitute impermissible attacks against another religion.  There is no showing whatsoever of the type of harm the tapes will bring about especially the gravity and imminence of the threatened harm.  Prior restraint on speech, including religious speech, cannot be justified by hypothetical fears but only by the showing of a substantive and imminent evil which has taken the life of a reality already on ground.

Presently in the United States, the clear and present danger test is not applied to protect low value speeches such as obscene speech, commercial speech and defamation.  Be that as it may, the test is still applied to four types of speech: speech that advocates dangerous ideas, speech that provokes a hostile audience reaction, out of court contempt and release of information that endangers a fair trial. Hence, even following the drift of American jurisprudence, there is reason to apply the clear and present danger test to the case at bar which concerns speech that attacks other religions and could readily provoke hostile audience reaction.  It cannot be doubted that religious truths disturb and disturb terribly.

It is also opined that it is inappropriate to apply the clear and present danger test to the case at bar because the issue involves the content of speech and not the time, place or manner of speech.  Allegedly, unless the speech is first allowed, its impact cannot be measured, and the causal connection between the speech and the evil apprehended cannot be established.  The contention overlooks the fact that the case at bar involves videotapes that are pre-taped and hence, their speech content is known and not an X quantity.  Given the specific content of the speech, it is not unreasonable to assume that the respondent Board, with its expertise, can determine whether its sulphur will bring about the substantive evil feared by the law.