Ang, Cedric Sean Yap

Article III, Section 7, Information and Access to Official Records

Osmena v Comelec 288 SCRA 447

FACTS: This is a petition for prohibition, seeking a reexamination of the validity of 11(b) of R.A. No.
6646, the Electoral Reforms Law of 1987, which prohibits mass media from selling or giving free of charge
print space or air time for campaign or other political purposes, except to the Commission on Elections.
The law actually fails to provide the equal opportunity for every candidate. Poor candidates lost their only
affordable medium (mass media), while their richer and more affluent rivals have other means outside the
mass media to reach out to the voters.
ISSUE: Whether or not Section 11B of RA 6646 is valid?
HELD: YES.
The Court upheld the validity of 11(b) of R.A. No. 6646. The provision is content neutral and regulatory.
The infringement of the freedom of speech is to merely incidental to further such interest, and the interest
that the state wants to protect be greater than the infringement of speech or expression. The freedom of
speech is not totally suppressed but only regulated.
The argument regarding the right to information is found in the dissent of Justice Panganiban. He believes
that the media is the most effective mode of the candidates to educate their voters. The people must be
accorded every access to information without much effort and expense on their part.
Justice Panganiban Dissent
Given the conditions then prevailing, the Courts ruling in NPC v. COMELEC may have been valid and
reasonable; yet today, with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the prohibition has become a woeful
hindrance to the exercise by the candidates of their cherished right to free expression and concomitantly, a
violation of the peoples right to information on matters of public concern. As applied, it has given an
undue advantage to well-known popular candidates for office.
The majority also claims that the prohibition is reasonable because it is limited in scope; that is, it refers
only to the purchase, sale or donation of print space and airtime for campaign or other political purposes,
and does not restrict news reporting or commentaries by editors, columnists, reporters, and broadcasters.
But the issue here is not the freedom of media professionals. The issue is the freedom of expression of
candidates. That the freedom of the press is respected by the law and by the Comelec is not a reason to
trample upon the candidates constitutional right to free speech and the peoples right to information. In this
light, the majoritys contention is a clear case of non sequitur. Media ads do not partake of the real
substantive evil that the state has a right to prevent and that justifies the curtailment of the peoples
cardinal right to choose their means of expression and of access to information.