To Kill the Watchdog

“No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.”

This is provided for under Section 4, Article III or the Bill of Rights of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. The English dictionary meanwhile defines “abridging” as to “shorten, edit, condense, reduce, abbreviate, or cut.”

To reduce the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech is unconstitutional. Senate Bill 2150 or the Right of Reply Bill is literally that. It reduces the freedom of the press because it seeks to impose limitations on the process of journalism work.

In a country that is plague by corruption, clipping the muscle of the press is tantamount to tolerating scams and more illegal activities.

It was reported that the Senate already passed the bill on third reading. The bill provides the news subjects right to air their side over the same media outfit that has published or aired the news.

Senate Bill 2150 provides that violators will be penalized with P10,000 for initial offense, P20,000 for 2nd offense and P30,000 and imprisonment of not more than 30 days for the third offense.

The bill requires the reply of a news subject to have equal space and length of airtime as the original news. The bill also states that reply must be aired or printed not more than 24 hours after the publication or broadcast of the original article or broadcast.

Thus, taking into context the intent and rationale of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, Senate Bill 2150 is truly unconstitutional because it is directly negating the very purpose of the fourth estate -- that is to be the watchdog of the government.

And to kill the watchdog is very dangerous. It could cause eventual breakdown and moral decay.