Your press freedom ends where my honor begins

Your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins. Your freedom of expression ends where my reputation begins. Every freshman Law student knows the Latin maxim “sic utire tuo ut alienum non laedas”. Use your right in a manner that does not violate the right of others.

No matter who you are, an internationally-acclaimed journalist, a multi-awarded and high-profile media personality, or even a Time Magazine's Person of the Year, you aren’t above the law. If you violate the law, if you transgress on the rights of others, you have to answer for your transgression before the court. Let your actions and your writings be tested before the crucible of law. And, if after due process where you were duly informed of the nature of the charges against you, you were granted ample opportunity to be heard, you were assisted by a battery of topnotch lawyers, you were found guilty, do not be a crybaby and appeal to the emotions of people who didn’t hear the evidence. Face the music like a true gentleman or lady. That is how the cookie crumbles.

The freedoms enshrined in the Constitution's Bill of Rights have never been intended by our founding fathers as a license to ridicule others, to cause harm in others' names and businesses, much less to destroy the good name and honor of private citizens. They are not public officials and the way they live their lives do not have relevance to public interest or the people. Private citizens deserve to be left alone. No writer has the freedom to disturb their privacy, or to besmirch their reputation. Once they file charges in the proper court, and the offenders are found guilty by final judgment, then they should go to jail. The law may be harsh, but it is the law. We are a government of laws and not of men or women.

The freedom to write, needless to stress, carries with it the corresponding responsibility to be mindful of the rights of others. We cannot run roughshod into the privacy of innocent victims. For no matter how simple they are, how lowly their stations are in life, we do not have the license to vex and humiliate them. Even if they are wealthy businessmen who silently do their business, they too are entitled to respect. Any writer who exceeds the bounds of ethical and legal journalism should be ready to be hauled to court. They can attack public officials in the performance of public functions, just as they have relentlessly attacked the president and his government, calling President Duterte by the most deplorable names before the world media. The president never filed a case against them. But private individuals don’t deserve to be maligned.

I have been a writer for the longest time, not only here in this paper but even in national broadsheets before I joined the government. When I was appointed DOLE undersecretary, I resigned from my writing assignment out of delicadeza, and to avoid conflict of interest. But even when I was a public official I continued to write in government publications. Each time I write though, I pray that I should not go astray, not to cast aspersions on the honor of people and institutions.