G.R. No. 164785

EN BANC

G.R. No. 164785 --- ELISEO F. SORIANO, Petitioner, versus MA. CONSOLIZA P. LAGUARDIA, in her capacity as Chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, MOVIE AND TELEVISION REVIEW AND CLASSIFICATION BOARD, JESSIE L. GALAPON, ANABEL M. DELA CRUZ, MANUEL M. HERNANDEZ, JOSE L. LOPEZ, CRISANTO SORIANO, BERNABE S. YARIA, JR., MICHAEL M. SANDOVAL and ROLDAN A. GAVINO, Respondents.

G.R. No. 165636 --- ELISEO F. SORIANO, Petitioner, versus MOVIE AND TELEVISION REVIEW AND CLASSIFICATION BOARD, ZOSIMO G. ALEGRE, JACKIE AQUINO-GAVINO, NOEL R. DEL PRADO, EMMANUEL BORLAZA, JOSE E. ROMERO IV, and FLORIMONDO C. ROUS, in their capacity as members of the Hearing and Adjudication Committee of the MTRCB, JESSIE L. GALAPON, ANABEL M. DELA CRUZ, MANUEL M. HERNANDEZ, JOSE L. LOPEZ, CRISANTO SORIANO, BERNABE S. YARIA, JR., MICHAEL M. SANDOVAL and ROLDAN A. GAVINO, in their capacity as complainants before the MTRCB, Respondents.

Promulgated:

March 15, 2010

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DISSENTING OPINION

ABAD, J.:

I am submitting this dissent to the ably written ponencia of Justice Presbiterio J. Velasco, Jr. that seeks to deny the petitioner’s motion for reconsideration of the Court’s decision in the case.

Brief Antecedent

Petitioner Eliseo F. Soriano, a television evangelist, hosted the Ang Dating Daan, a popular television ministry aired nationwide everyday from 10:00 p.m. to midnight over public television. The program carried a “general patronage” rating from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

The Ang Dating Daan’s rivalry with another religious television program, the Iglesia ni Cristo’s Ang Tamang Daan, is well known. The hosts of the two shows have regularly engaged in verbal sparring on air, hurling accusations and counter-accusations with respect to their opposing religious beliefs and practices.

It appears that in his program Ang Tamang Daan, Michael M. Sandoval (Michael) of the Iglesia ni Cristo attacked petitioner Soriano of the Ang Dating Daan for alleged inconsistencies in his Bible teachings. Michael compared spliced recordings of Soriano’s statements, matched with subtitles of his utterances, to demonstrate those inconsistencies. On August 10, 2004, in an apparent reaction to what he perceived as a malicious attack against him by the rival television program, Soriano accused Michael of prostituting himself with his fabricated presentations. Thus:

“….gago ka talaga Michael. Masahol ka pa sa putang babae. O di ba? Yung putang babae ang gumagana lang doon yung ibaba, kay Michael ang gumagana ang itaas, o di ba! O, masahol pa sa putang babae yan. Sabi ng lola ko masahol pa sa putang babae yan. Sobra ang kasinungalingan ng demonyong ito…”

Michael and seven other ministers of the Iglesia ni Cristo lodged a complaint against petitioner Soriano before the MTRCB. Acting swiftly, the latter preventively suspended the airing of Soriano’s Ang Dating Daan television program for 20 days, pursuant to its powers under Section 3(d) of Presidential Decree 1986[1] and its related rules.

Petitioner Soriano challenged the validity of that preventive suspension before this Court in G.R. 164785. Meanwhile, after hearing the main case or on September 27, 2004, the MTRCB found Soriano guilty as charged and imposed on him a penalty of three months suspension from appearing on the Ang Dating Daan program. Soriano thus filed a second petition in G.R. 165636 to question that decision. The Court consolidated the two cases.

On April 29, 2009 the Court rendered a decision, upholding MTRCB’s power to impose preventive suspension and affirming its decision against petitioner Soriano with the modification of applying the three-month suspension to the program And Dating Daan, rather than to Soriano.

Issue Presented

This dissenting opinion presents a narrow issue: whether or not the Court is justified in imposing the penalty of three-month suspension on the television program Ang Dating Daan on the ground of host petitioner Soriano’s remarks about Iglesia ni Cristo’s Michael prostituting himself when he attacked Soriano in the Iglesia’s own television program.

The Dissent

The Ang Dating Daan is a nationwide television ministry of a church organization officially known as “Members of the Church of God International” headed by petitioner Soriano. It is a vast religious movement not so far from those of Mike Velarde’s El Shadai, Eddie Villanueva’s Jesus is Lord, and Apollo Quiboloy’s The Kingdom of Jesus Christ. These movements have generated such tremendous following that they have been able to sustain daily television and radio programs that reach out to their members and followers all over the country. Some of their programs are broadcast abroad. Ang Dating Daan is aired in the United States and Canada.

The Catholic Church is of course the largest religious organization in the Philippines. If its members get their spiritual nourishments from attending masses or novenas in their local churches, those of petitioner Soriano’s church tune in every night to listen to his televised Bible teachings and how these teachings apply to their lives. They hardly have places of worship like the Catholic Church or the mainstream protestant movements.

Thus, suspending the Ang Dating Daan television program is the equivalent of closing down their churches to its followers. Their inability to tune in on their Bible teaching program in the evening is for them like going to church on Sunday morning, only to find its doors and windows heavily barred. Inside, the halls are empty.

Do they deserve this? No.

1. A tiny moment of lost temper.

Petitioner Soriano’s Bible ministry has been on television continuously for 27 years since 1983 with no prior record of use of foul language. For a 15-second outburst of its head at his bitterest critics, it seems not fair for the Court to close down this Bible ministry to its large followers altogether for a full quarter of a year. It is like cutting the leg to cure a smelly foot.

2. Not obscene.

Primarily, it is obscenity on television that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech does not protect. As the Court’s decision points out, the test of obscenity is whether the average person, applying contemporary standards, would find the speech, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest. A thing is prurient when it arouses lascivious thoughts or desires[2] or tends to arouse sexual desire.[3]

A quarter-of-a-year suspension would probably be justified when a general patronage program intentionally sneaks in snippets of lewd, prurient materials to attract an audience to the program. This has not been the case here.

3. Merely borders on indecent.

Actually, the Court concedes that petitioner Soriano’s short outburst was not in the category of the obscene. It was just “indecent.” But were his words and their meaning utterly indecent? In a scale of 10, did he use the grossest language? He did not.

First, Soriano actually exercised some restraints in the sense that he did not use the vernacular word for the female sexual organ when referring to it, which word even the published opinions of the Court avoided despite its adult readers. He referred to it as “yung ibaba” or down below. And, instead of using the patently offensive vernacular equivalent of the word “fuck” that describes the sexual act in which the prostitute engages herself, he instead used the word “gumagana lang doon yung ibaba” or what functions is only down below. At most, his utterance merely bordered on the indecent.

Second, the word “puta” or “prostitute” describes a bad trade but it is not a bad word. The world needs a word to describe it. “Evil” is bad but the word “evil” is not; the use of the words “puta” or “evil” helps people understand the values that compete in this world. A policy that places these ordinary descriptive words beyond the hearing of children is unrealistic and is based on groundless fear. Surely no member of the Court will recall that when yet a child his or her hearing the word “puta” for the first time left him or her wounded for life.

Third, Soriano did not tell his viewers that being a prostitute was good. He did not praise prostitutes as to make them attractive models to his listeners. Indeed, he condemned Michael for acting like a prostitute in attacking him on the air. The trouble is that the Court, like the MTRCB read his few lines in isolation. Actually, from the larger picture, Soriano appears to have been provoked by Michael’s resort to splicing his speeches and making it appear that he had taught inconsistent and false doctrines to his listeners. If Michael’s sin were true, Soriano was simply defending himself with justified anger.

And fourth, the Court appears to have given a literal meaning to what Soriano said.

“Gago ka talaga x x x, masahol ka pa sa putang babae x x x. Yung putang babae ang gumagana lang doon yung ibaba, [dito] kay Michael ang gumagana ang itaas, o di ba!”

This was a figure of speech. Michael was a man, so he could not literally be a female prostitute. Its real meaning is that Michael was acting like a prostitute in mouthing the ideas of anyone who cared to pay him for such service. It had no indecent meaning. The Bible itself uses the word “prostitute” as a figure of speech. “By their deeds they prostituted themselves,” said Psalm 106:39 of the Israelites who continued to worship idols after God had taken them out of Egyptian slavery.[4] Soriano’s real message is that Michael prostituted himself by his calumny against him.

If at all, petitioner Soriano’s breach of the rule of decency is slight, one on a scale of 10. Still, the Court would deprive the Ang Dating Daan followers of their nightly bible teachings for a quarter of a year because their head teacher had used figures of speech to make his message vivid.

4. The average child as listener

The Court claims that, since Ang Dating Daan carried a general patronage rating, Soriano’s speech no doubt caused harm to the children who watched the show. This statement is much too sweeping.

The Court relies on the United States case of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) v. Pacifica Foundation,[5] a 1978 landmark case. Here are snatches of the challenged monologue that was aired on radio:

The original seven words were, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Those are the ones that will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor and bourbon…Also cocksucker is a compound word and neither half of that is really dirty…And the cock crowed three times, the cock—three times. It’s in the Bible, cock in the Bible…Hot shit, holy shit, tough shit, eat shit, shit-eating grin…It’s a great word, fuck, nice word, easy word, cute word, kind of. Easy word to say. One syllable, short u. Fuck…A little something for everyone. Fuck. Good word. x x x

Imagine how the above would sound if translated into any of the Filipino vernaculars. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the above is not protected speech and that the FCC could regulate its airing on radio. The U.S. Supreme Court was of course correct.

Here, however, there is no question that Soriano attacked Michael, using figure of speech, at past 10:00 in the evening, not at 2:00 in the afternoon. The average Filipino child would have been long in bed by the time Ang Dating Daan appeared on the television screen. What is more, Bible teaching and interpretation is not the stuff of kids. It is not likely that they would give up programs of interest to them just to listen to Soriano drawing a distinction between “faith” and “work or action.” The Court has stretched the “child” angle beyond realistic proportions. The MTRCB probably gave the program a general patronage rating simply because Ang Dating Daan had never before been involved in any questionable broadcast in the previous 27 years that it had been on the air.

The monologue in the FCC case that was broadcast at 2 in the afternoon was pure indecent and gross language, uttered for its own sake with no social value at all. It cannot compare to Soriano’s speech where the indecent words were slight and spoken as mere figure of speech to defend himself from what he perceived as malicious criticism.

5. Disproportionate penalty

The Court applied the balancing of interest test in justifying the imposition of the penalty of suspension against Ang Dating Daan. Under this test, when particular conduct is regulated in the interest of public order and the regulation results in an indirect, conditional, partial abridgment of speech, the duty of the courts is to determine which of the two conflicting interests demands the greater protection under the particular circumstances presented.

An example of this is where an ordinance prohibits the making of loud noises from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Can this ordinance be applied to prevent vehicles circling the neighborhood at such hours of night, playing campaign jingles on their loudspeakers to win votes for candidates in the election? Here, there is a tension between the rights of candidates to address their constituents and the interest of the people in healthy undisturbed sleep. The Court would probably uphold the ordinance since public interest demands a quiet night’s rest for all and since the restraint on the freedom of speech is indirect, conditional, and partial. The candidate is free to make his broadcast during daytime when people are normally awake and can appreciate what he is saying.

But here, the abridgment of speech—three months total suspension of the Ang Dating Daan television bible teaching program—cannot be regarded as indirect, conditional, or partial. It is a direct, unconditional, and total abridgment of the freedom of speech, to which a religious organization is entitled, for a whole quarter of a year.

In the American case of FCC, a parent complained. He was riding with his son in the car at 2:00 in the afternoon and they heard the grossly indecent monologue on radio. Here, no parent has in fact come forward with a complaint that his child had heard petitioner Soriano’s speech and was harmed by it. The Court cannot pretend that this is a case of angry or agitated parents against Ang Dating Daan. The complaint here came from Iglesia ni Cristo preachers and members who deeply loathed Soriano and his church. The Court’s decision will not be a victory for the children but for the Iglesia ni Cristo, finally enabling it to silence an abhorred competing religious belief and its practices.

What is more, since this case is about protecting children, the more appropriate penalty, if Soriano’s speech during the program mentioned was indecent and had offended them, is to raise his program’s restriction classification. The MTRCB classify programs to protect vulnerable audiences. It can change the present G or General Patronage classification of Ang Dating Daan to PG or “with Parental Guidance only” for three months. This can come with a warning that should the program commit the same violation, the MTRCB can make the new classification permanent or, if the violation is recurring, cancel its program’s permit.

This has precedent. In Gonzales v. Katigbak,[6] the Court did not ban the motion picture just because there were suggestive scenes in it that were not fit for children. It simply classified the picture as for adults only. By doing this, the Court would not be cutting the leg to cure a smelly foot.

I vote to partially grant the motion for reconsideration by modifying the three-month suspension penalty imposed on the program Ang Dating Daan. In its place, I vote to raise the program’s restriction classification from G or General Patronage to PG or with Parental Guidance for three months with warning that should petitioner Soriano commit the same violation, the classification of his program will be permanently changed or, if the violation is persistent, the program will be altogether cancelled.

ROBERTO A. ABAD

Associate Justice

[1] Creating the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.

[2] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, p. 1829.

[4] New International Version (North American Edition); see other biblical passages that use “prostitute” as a figure of speech: Judges 2:17; 8:27; 8:33; 1Chronicles 5:25; and Leviticus 20:5.