Professional Documents
Culture Documents
freedom of speech and press. Said motion was considered by the Court in its
deliberations leading to this resolution.
We find Tulfo's "explanation" to be fatally devoid of merit.
At the outset, it should be stated that, contrary to Tulfo's pretense, the Court's
decision on the issue of checkpoints had not become final at the time he wrote the
questioned articles. In fact, the Court has yet to act on the motion for reconsideration
of said decision, filed by the petitioner therein, to which the Solicitor General,
appearing for the respondents, has filed an opposition. Consequently, at the time Tulfo
wrote and published the questioned articles, the case had not been closed and
terminated but was sub judice.
The power to punish for contempt is inherent in all courts, as it is essential to their
right of self-preservation.[1] Courts are universally acknowledged to be vested, by
their very creation, with power to impose silence, respect, and decorum in their
presence and submission to their lawful mandates, and as corollary to this proposition,
to preserve themselves and their officers from the approach of insults and pollution.
[2]
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It is thus imperative that the Court should preserve its authority, dignity and the
respect due it from litigants, lawyers and the public, for the reason that "The Supreme Court of the Philippines is, under the Constitution, the last
bulwark to which the Filipino people may repair to obtain relief for their
grievances or protection of their rights when these are trampled upon, and if
the people lose their confidence in the honesty and integrity of the members
of this court and believe that they can not expect justice there-from, they
might be driven to take the law into their own hands, and disorder and
perhaps chaos would result."[10]
If this Court were to allow insults hurled against it and its members to go unpunished,
then it becomes remiss in its own duty to maintain its authority, integrity, and
dignity.
Tulfo's claim that he was "emotional" when he wrote the questioned articles can in no
way serve as an excuse for insulting and demeaning the highest court of the land and
its members. In fact, it has been held that not even good faith is a ground for
exoneration in a contempt charge.[11]
Being of age and presumably gifted with reason, Tulfo must have been fully aware of
the seriousness of his undertaking to insult the Court and its members. For such
conduct, he must assume responsibility for its consequences, without hiding behind
the cloak of "emotionalism" or the convenient anonymity of his alleged "reaction"
sources. A writer worth his guts should know that a pre-condition to credibility is
honesty, not cowardice.
The Court does not deny Tulfo's right to be emotional about certain issues; however,
as a responsible member of the press, he should first rationalize and tackle issues with
objectivity. The fact that the issue of checkpoints had become a "highly emotional
issue" for him is not a logical reason to insult the Court and its members, for, if Tulfo
strongly felt that the Court had erred in its decision, he was free to criticize the
decision on its merits. But to maliciously demean the Court and the intelligence of its
members achieved really nothing in pointing out the errors, if any, in the decision
objected to.
Reading through the two (2) articles written by Tulfo, respectively entitled "Idiotic
decision" and "Sangkatutak na Bobo", it is plain that Tulfo intended to ridicule and
degrade the Court and its members before the public, not merely to criticize its
decision on the merits, as he would now like to make this Court believe. The general
tone and language used in Tulfo's articles belie his belated allegation that the word
"idiotic" was used in the sense of the decision being merely "illogical, irrational,
unwarranted and unwise."
Reprehensible language may take various forms and in all cases its general tone
should be considered. Whether or not the meaning and intent of a certain article
constitute contempt is to be determined by the Court as a matter of law upon a fair
consideration of the language used. Disclaimer by the author of intentional disrespect
to the Court, just like disclaimer by a publisher of any knowledge of the article prior to
its publication is not a defense.[12]
As Tulfo well knows, in ordinary parlance, "idiotic" is defined as "devoid of intellect,
utterly stupid, sense-less or foolish";[13] while legally, it is defined as "a person who
has been without understanding from his nativity, and whom the law, therefore,
presumes never likely to attain an"[14] or "the lowest level of feeblemindedness in
which an individual is possessed of a maximum mental age of two years or an IQ of
25"[15] while the word "stupid" is defined as "wanting in or slow of mental perception;
lacking ordinary activity of mind; slow-witted; dull."[16]
Had Tulfo honestly meant to express only to the public his personal opinion that the
questioned decision is "illogical, irrational, unwarranted and unwise," then, he could
have said so without resort to the use of words which are derogatory, and thereafter
claim that he did not mean the way they were written or understood by his readers.
Such turnabout only shows how grossly irresponsible, or in bad faith or mentally
dishonest Tulfo was in writing said articles and causing the same to be published.
In fine, the intent clearly manifested by Tulfo in the questioned articles is to give an
image of a Supreme Court composed of members who are ignorant or devoid of
intelligence, thus, incapable of carrying out the proper dispensation of justice which
they are tasked to perform under the Constitution. And, while it has been said that
those who have great proficiency at hurling insults at others usually fit such insults so
well, the Court will not pass this judgment on Tulfo but will simply hold him as having
insulted, without any rational justification, the institution of the Supreme Court and its
members.
Likewise, there is no merit in Tulfo's defense that he was merely quoting the reactions
of some lawyers to the decision when he referred to the Supreme Court justices as
"sangkatutak na bobo". While it is true that in his opening statement in the 16 October
1989 article, Tulfo stated that many lawyers he had talked to describe the present
complement of justices as "sangkatutak na bobo", yet, his parting shot and personal
statement at the end of the article, which says "(T)o the sangkatutak na bobo justices
of the Philip-pine Supreme Court, please take note!", runs counter to his very claim
that such assessment of the Court and its members was not his personal opinion.
Thus, he is not only an inventive expert; he is totally in bad faith. At the very least, he
cannot be exculpated from full and sole responsibility for the publication of such
derogatory statement.
Moreover, in a later (6 November 1989) article, Tulfo declared that he was not sorry at
all that he wrote the way he did in his two (2) questioned articles, and he claimed that
he was "merely expressing his honest opinion." He stood firm with his original
indictment of the Court and its members as "sangkatutak na bobo" and "stupid
justices", and never truly apologized for making such statements. It is thus clear that
all that he claimed to be sorry for was that he cannot take back what he had said in
his earlier articles, and that he was sorry for those who have been allegedly affected
by the ruling on checkpoints, like the motorists, consumers and end-users.
Freedom of speech and expression, like all constitutional freedoms, is not absolute,
and freedom of expression has, on appropriate occasions, to be adjusted and
accommodated to the requirements of equally important public interests. One of these
fundamental public interests is the maintenance of the authority, integrity and orderly
functioning of the courts. For, the protection and maintenance of freedom of
expression itself can be secured only within the framework of a functioning and orderly
system of justice.[17] Freedom of expression is not license to insult the Court and its
members and to impair the authority, integrity and dignity of the Court.
The inherent power of courts to punish any publication calculated to interfere with the
administration of justice is not restricted by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of
the press, for freedom of the press is subordinate to the authority, integrity and
independence of the judiciary and the proper administration of justice. Freedom of the
press must not be confounded with license or abuse of that freedom. Writers and
publishers of newspapers have the right, but no greater than the right of others, to
bring to public notice the conduct and acts of courts, provided the publications are true
and fair in spirit; in short, there is no law to restrain or punish the freest expression of
disapprobation of what is done in or by the courts,[18]provided that free expression is
not used as a vehicle to satisfy one's irrational obsession to demean, ridicule, degrade
and even destroy the courts and their members. Consequently, Tulfo's as well as
intervenors' claim to press freedom, is not well taken in this instance.
ACCORDINGLY, the Court finds and adjudges respondent Ramon Tulfo in CONTEMPT
OF COURT, and he is hereby GRAVELY CENSURED, with the STRONGEST WARNING
that a repetition of the same or similar misconduct will be dealt with MORE SEVERELY.
Gutierrez, Jr., J., is on leave.
Sarmiento, J., who is on leave concurs in the opinion.
[3]
[4]
Rivera v. Florendo, G.R. NO. L-57586, 8 October 1986, 144 SCRA 643
[5]
12 Am Jur 412, 31
[7]
[8]
[9]
Ibid.
[10]
[11]
[12]
12 Am Jur. Contempt, 34
[13]
[14]
[15]
[17]
[18]
12 Am Jur, Contempt, 32