COMMENTARY | The Limits and Responsibilities of Freedom of Speech

COMMENTARY | The limits and responsibilities of freedom of speech

BY GIULIANI ALFONSO A. ABADILLA FREEDOM of speech, or freedom of expression, applies to ideas of all kinds, including those that may be deeply offensive. While the law protects free speech, there are instances where it can legitimately be restricted, particularly when it violates the rights of others, promotes hatred, or incites discrimination or violence. The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, Article III, Section 4, provides…

Another blow against freedom of expression is generated by the Brownist regime with the controversial initiative known as “Censorship Law, ” which aims to impose an artificial and impracticable distinction between information, opinion and publicity. Article 228, third section, requires the media to label each content with surgical precision, something that is technically impossible and that threatens the free exercise of journalism. They impose …

Political power has always been uncomfortable with freedom of expression. The difference in a democracy is that those who criticize or disagree are tolerated and, if there is a height, respected; while in autocratic regimes what is uncomfortable is disqualified and insulted, diminished or persecuted those who disagree. Freedom of expression is not a monopoly of journalists, it also happens on the street, which now expands, because each person wi…

The difference in a democracy is that those who criticize or disagree are tolerated and if there is a height, they are respected. Autocratic regimes disqualify what bothers and insults, diminishes or persecutes those who disagree. Freedom of expression is not a monopoly of journalists, it also happens on the street, which now expands because each person with his or her mobile phone becomes a reporter or divulgator of what happens.

The socialist Sánchez is a plague. Never in our history have we suffered a president of government, who would love himself so much, love Spain so little and be so expensive. And we have never suffered a media so dedicated to power, so dependent on the subsidy or the institutional advertising and a recuperation of such journalists.