ADIONG VS.

COMELEC

Facts:

 COMELEC promulgated Resolution No. 2347 which provides that decals and
stickers may be posted only in any of the authorized posting areas, prohibiting
posting in "mobile" places, public or private.

 Petitioner Blo Umpar Adiong, a senatorial candidate in the May 11, 1992
elections now assails the Resolution.

 In addition, the petitioner believes that with the ban on radio, television
and print political advertisements, he, being a neophyte in the field of politics
stands to suffer grave and irreparable injury with this prohibition.

Issue: Whether or Not the COMELEC’s prohibition unconstitutional.

Held:

 The prohibition unduly infringes on the citizen's fundamental right of free

speech. The preferred freedom of expression calls all the more for the utmost
respect when what may be curtailed is the dissemination of information to
make more meaningful the equally vital right of suffrage.

 The so-called balancing of interests — individual freedom on one hand and

substantial public interests on the other — is made even more difficult
in election campaign cases because the Constitution also gives specific
authority to the Commission on Elections to supervise the conduct of free,
honest, and orderly elections.

 When faced with border line situations where freedom to speak by a

candidate or party and freedom to know on the part of the electorate are
invoked against actions intended for maintaining clean and free elections,
the police, local officials and COMELEC, should lean in favor of freedom.

 The regulation of election campaign activity may not pass the test of validity
if it is too general in its terms or not limited in time and scope in its application,
if it restricts one's expression of belief in a candidate or one's opinion of his or
her qualifications, if it cuts off the flow of media reporting, and if the
regulatory measure bears no clear and reasonable nexus with the
constitutionally sanctioned objective.

 The posting of decals and stickers in mobile places like cars and other moving
vehicles does not endanger any substantial government interest. There is no
clear public interest threatened by such activity so as to justify the curtailment
of the cherished citizen's right of free speech and expression.

 Under the clear and present danger rule not only must the danger be
patently clear and pressingly present but the evil sought to be avoided must
be so substantive as to justify a clamp over one's mouth or a writing
instrument to be stilled. The regulation strikes at the freedom of an individual
to express his preference and, by displaying it on his car, to convince others
to agree with him.