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G.R. No. L-32546, October 17, 1970,
♦ Decision, Makasiar, [J]
♦ Separate Opinion, Reyes, Acting [CJ]
♦ Concurring Opinion, Makalintal, [J]
♦ Concurring Opinion, Castro, [J]
♦ Dissenting Opinion, Fernando, [J]
♦ Dissenting Opinion, Barredo, [J]
♦ Dissenting Opinion, Teehankee, [J]

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EN BANC

G.R. No. L-32546 October 17, 1970

ANACLETO D. BADOY, JR., petitioner,
vs.
JAIME N. FERRER, Chairman, CESAR MIRAFLOR, and LINO M. PATAJO, Members, Commission on Elections, respondents.

G.R. No. L-32551 October 17, 1970

ANACLETO D. BADOY, JR., petitioner,
vs.
JAIME N. FERRER, Chairman, CESAR MIRAFLOR, and LINO M. PATAJO, MEMBERS, Commission on Elections, respondents.

Anacleto D. Badoy, Jr. in his own behalf.

Office of the Solicitor General for respondents.

Separate Opinions

TEEHANKEE, J., dissenting:

The holding of periodic elections constitutes the very foundation of a republican form of government such as ours. And it has aptly been remarked that "the measure of success of a democratic system is found in the degree to which its elections really reflect rising discontent before it becomes unmanageable, by which government responds to it with timely redress, and by which losing groups are self-disciplined to accept election results."1

An election is the most elemental and direct act and participation of the citizen in the conduct of government. Political power is thus entrusted by him, in concert with the entire body of the electorate, to the leaders who are to govern the nation for a specified period. It has thus been universally postulated that it is the government's bounden duty to see to it, that the elections are free and honest and that the voter is free from fraud, force and corruption so that the choice of the people is freely expressed and recorded and "the ballot box, the just index of public opinion." 2 And since "many things are prerequisites to elections or may affect their outcome — voters, education, means of transportation, health, public discussion, ..., private animosities, even the face and figure of the candidate(s)"3 the fullest and freest discussion of men and issues, through assembly, association and organizations both by the candidate and the voter, has likewise been universally conceded as an indispensable condition for free and honest elections. This of course includes the fullest and freest discussion in all the media for public information the press, since "the freedom of written (or printed) speech is no longer less protected ... than the freedom of spoken words"4 and the modern media of radio, television and movies, since "these days free speech includes more than talk to a crowd from a platform."5

The Chief Justice, emphasizing the need for the electorate to be informed of the specific measures and issues based upon concrete proposals for constitutional reforms rather than generalizations, that a candidate for delegate to the forthcoming Constitutional Convention intends to espouse, as well as of the interests that he represents, has observed that "(I)t is vitally important for the electorate to know, before the election of delegates, what, in particular, are the specific measures each candidate proposes to champion in the convention. The people should not be contented with generalizations. They should not be satisfied with broad statements about advancing the well-being of the collectivity, ridding the government of graft and corruption, promoting efficiency and economy, and the other abstractions of similar nature. Nor is it enough that a candidate be honest, patriotic and learned. The school of thought to which he belongs, the interests he represents, and the precise amendments he stands for, should count heavily in the choice of delegates. Each candidate should, therefore, raise issues based upon concrete reforms he intends to espouse. He should explain to the voters why they ought to back him up in supporting such reforms. In this manner, he would help the people make up their minds on particular questions."6

Without freedom to circulate, through the public media of information and within the legally permissible limit for campaign expenditures, a candidate's qualifications and specific platform as well as to denounce the deficiencies and defects of an opponent and his program, the constitutional rights of both the candidate and the voters to free expression and free press are abridged and they are deprived thereof without due process.

I am constrained, therefore, to dissent, with due respect, from main opinion that sustains the constitutionality of the challenged provisions of section 12(F) of the 1971 Constitutional Convention Act.

1. The challenged section decrees it to be "unlawful" and "a serious election offense carrying a penalty of imprisonment of not less than a year and one day but not more than five years" and disqualification from public office and deprivation of suffrage from one year to nine years7 — outside of "Comelec space," "to print or publish, or cause to be printed or published any advertisement, paid comment or paid article in furtherance of or in opposition to the candidacy of any person for delegate, or mentioning the name of any candidate and the fact of his candidacy, unless all the names of all other candidates in the district in which the candidate mentioned is running are also mentioned with equal prominence." As far as the writer knows, such, statute that would so stifle and curtail the people's right to free political discussion and to manifestly, publicly and actively support one candidate as against another is totally without precedent in the annals of republican governments. This alone should give us pause.

2. The additional restrictions and strictures in the statute "to preserve suffrage pure and undefiled and to achieve the desired equality of chances among all the candidates," cited in the main opinion as "more than compensating for the minor limitation on the freedom of expression of an individual "by the challenged section, viz,.

— a ban on election propaganda and posters other than on a free "Comelec billboard" supposed to be allocated by lottery by the Comelec among the candidates, which billboard has proved to be so inutile that the Comelec itself declared its abandonment thereof;

— a ban on radio and TV publicity other than on free "Comelec time" from each radio broadcasting and television station of from one to two hours a week "but not oftener that every other day" 8 likewise allocated lottery by the Comelec, which time amounts to sporadic four-minute spots where the candidates are at times constrained to race against the shortness of the allocated time and to alienate the listening and the viewing audience with barren slogans and platitudes;

— a ban on any candidate's appearance on any interview or program, unless all other candidates in the district are also invited to appear; 9

— a total ban against all political party or organized group support of assistance, "whether material, moral, emotional or otherwise,"10 so much so that no two candidates in the same district are permitted to campaign together;

— a total ban on all other forms of propaganda and literature (other than 8-1/2" x 14" pamphlets or leaflets and handwritten or printed letters containing data and qualifications relevant to one's candidacy)11 so much so that a candidate cannot place a poster announcing his candidacy "even on the outside walls of his house;"12

— a total ban on radio and TV stations, movie houses or theaters showing, displaying or giving any advertising or propaganda to any candidate;13 and

— a total ban on radio and TV stations scheduling any program or permitting any sponsor "to manifestly favor or oppose any candidate by unduly referring to him or including him in its programs or newscasts;"14

far from being "so narrow as not to affect the substance and vitality of (the) freedom of expression itself to my mind oppressively and unreasonably strait-jacket the candidates as well as the electorate and gravely violate the constitutional guaranties of freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of association, and deny due process and the equal protection of the laws.

3. As to the specifically challenged provision of Section 12 (F) of the Convention Act outlawing the recourse to and use of paid newspaper space and other print media outside "Comelec space," by any one, whether he be a candidate or not, to promote or oppose the candidacy of any person for delegate to the Convention, without mentioning with equal prominence the names of all other candidates in the district concerned, it should be stated that at the hearing of the cases at bar, respondents chairman and members of Comelec acknowledged that their tentative arrangements with newspapers, magazines and periodicals publishers to provide free "Comelec space" to be allocated equally among all the candidates, with a maximum space of twenty (20) words for each candidate stating his bio-data or constitutional amendment proposals had fizzled out, since there was just not that much free space for candidates totalling close to 3,000 and that the final arrangement was that the newspapers and periodicals would publish just the names of the candidates "as often as they can."

And so comes the petitioner in a plight typical of the overwhelming majority of the earnest candidates who wish to serve as delegates — unknown and without previous public exposure, alone and without support of any political party or machine or political leader but perhaps worthy and deserving — who wants to actively pursue his candidacy and asks only that he be given an opportunity to equalize his chances by being allowed, within his means and the means of those who have faith in him, to make use of the modern media of mass communications (the press, radio and TV to make known to the hundred thousand or so voters of his province his candidacy and his proposals and to try to win their votes within the short span of two months that the Act has given him to campaign before the election scheduled for November 10 this year. He complains of the denial of his and the people's constitutional rights of free expression and free press. But he is told that he may only campaign and solicit the people's votes in person (and through the members of his family within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity and affinity and his personal campaign staff limited to one person for every ten precincts of the over 1,000 precincts spread throughout his province) as during the horse-and-buggy era of old; that if he wants to buy newspaper space, he must also buy space for his opponents and mention them with equal prominence; that he is totally barred from buying any radio, TV, or movie theater time; and that all these are to enhance his parity of chances in winning the election!"

4. The challenged provision according to the main opinion, would ban a publisher who is yet a natural person but "a juridical person or an organized group of persons of whatever nature, whether in the business of publishing a newspaper magazine or periodical only for the particular election or not," from publishing "any advertisement or article ... for or against any candidate, paid or unpaid by said publisher" since it "is prohibited as an organized group support under paragraph 1 of Sec. 8 (a) of R.A. No. 6132."15 Under this constricted view of the main opinion, only publishers who are natural persons may on their own publish paid or unpaid articles for or against any candidate; the great majority of publishers, who are juridical persons — since in this modern age of corporations, publishers generally incorporate to facilitate the doing of business as well as to avoid personal liability in libel suits — may not do so, because of the Act's all-encompassing taboo on organized group support. Only individuals, i.e. natural persons, may cause the publication of unpaid comments or articles for or against any candidate, assuming that notwithstanding the keen everyday competition for space, they succeed in exercising some special charm on the editors to accommodate their unsolicited contributions. Freedom of the press is indeed sorely tried under such strictures.

5. Yet, the main opinion acknowledges that Congress did not and could not impose on publishers of newspapers, magazines and periodicals the duty to allocate free Comelec space, since such compulsion "would be an undue abridgment of the publisher's own freedom." It would seem to be just as grave an abridgment of the preferred freedoms of free speech and free press to deny to the people, whether acting individually or in concert as a group, as well as to the individual candidates who should not be interdicted these freedoms by virtue of their candidacy, the right and liberty of free access to the press and the right to appeal to public opinion through its wide circulation among the people upon payment of the customary rates for the space.

6. Coming to the constitutional tests of the validity of these statutory restrictions, the main opinion, reiterating the holding in the recently decided cases of Imbong and Gonzales,16 justifies the Convention Act's abridgment of the freedoms of expression, press and association as valid limitations in the State's exercise of its police power, "to prevent a clear and present danger of the perversion or prostitution of the electoral apparatus and of the denial of the equal protection of the laws," and applying the balancing-of-interests criterion, declare that the "all important substantive interests of the State to preserve the purity of the ballot and to render more meaningful and real the guarantee of the equal protection of the laws" far outweigh the restrictions on the invaded freedom (which) is so narrow that the basic liberty remains."17

The premises upon which the main opinion is based, as gleaned from its pronouncements and those in Imbong-Gonzales, may thus be restated:.

— Excessive partisan activities and participation of political parties present a clear and present danger of debasement and prostitution of the electoral process;18

— The ban against all party or other organized support is to avert the clear and present danger of another substantive evil, denial of the equal protection of the laws - the candidates must be assured equal protection of the laws by according them equality of chances;19

— Candidates must therefore depend on their individual merits and not on the support of political parties or organizations;20

— Civic associations other than political parties must likewise be banned, because if exempted, they would "utilize the facilities of the campaign machineries which they are denying to political parties," notwithstanding that when they "engage in a political activity ... to that extent it partakes of the nature of a political organization;"21

— Recent political history and experience show that "the victory of an independent candidate mainly rests on his ability to match the resources, financial and otherwise, of the political parties or organizations supporting his opponent;22

— Political parties and other organized groups have built-in advantages because of their machinery and other facilities which the individual candidate who is without any organization support, does not have," and the law therefore bans their participation "to attain real equality of chances among individual candidates;"23

— The delegates must "be independent, beholden to no one but to God, country and conscience ... delegates who, because they have been chosen with the aid and resources of organizations cannot be expected to be sufficiently representative of the people (and) could very well be the spokesmen of narrow political, religious or economic interest and not of the great majority of the people;" 24

— "The evident purpose of the limitation on the freedom of the candidate or sympathizers to spend his own money for his candidacy alone and not for the furtherance of the candidacy of his opponents (by requiring mention with equal prominence in newspapers, ads or paid articles of all other candidates) is to give the poor candidates a fighting chance in the election;"25 and

— Under the Convention Act, "If the candidate omits the name of his opponents he is guilty of deception, which nullifies his right to enjoy the liberty he invoked for himself."26

7. It is respectfully noted that the above-cited premises of the main opinion are vitiated by erroneous assumptions and conceptions, the validity of which may be questioned as follows:.

— Would the banning of political parties and all other organizations in the election purify electoral process — when the self-evident reality, as pungently expressed by Senator Tañada is that "Man is by nature gregarious, by instinct and necessity predisposed to form societies with other men to attain in concert with them the various goals or ends of his existence which individually they cannot achieve ?"27

— "Without organizations like the Masonic Lodge, the La Liga Filipina and the Katipunan, we will not today be a nation. And, without that grand old Nacionalista Party of Quezon and Osmeña, the predecessor of the present Nacionalista and Liberal Parties, we would not be independent" was the answer of Sen. Diokno,28 who added tersely that "It is not political parties that make elections crooked. It is crooked politicians. And by eliminating political parties, you strengthen the crooked politicians because you take away the moral influence, if not actual influence of the party leaders to keep in check the abuses of crooked politicians;" conveying the implied suggestion that the proper remedy is the elimination at the polls of the power and evil influence of the crooked politician.

— Are not political parties a necessity in any republican form of government, and as pointed out by Senator Diokno, "it is only where political rights are denied to the people that political parties are extinguished"29 with the consequent elimination of all political opposition and the emergence of authoritarianism?

— Would the ban against all party or other organized support accord the candidates equality of chances, when as is commonly known, in many provinces it is the so-called political kingpins who control politics, the party just being a convenient vehicle as witness the constant party switching after every national election, and as conceded by Senator Tolentino at the Imbong-Gonzales hearing, these political kingpins would continue to assert their influence, in their individual capacity, in the election ?30

— Would not the ban against all party or organization participation create a political vacuum that would render invincible the position of local political kingpins with their personal political machines and followers?

— Would it not be illusory to decree by fiat that candidates depend on their individual merits without party or organized support, when it is precisely by gaining the support of effective and non-partisan organizations that non-moneyed independent candidates may secure the resources, facilities and organized action to overcome the superior financial resources of their opponents? For as pointed out by Senator Tañada, "a common man without organization has no chance against political leaders" and the organization ban would deprive the common man, the laborers and the farmers "of the very tools they need to elect their delegates.31

— Is organized political activity of civic associations and non-political organizations to be considered tainted, such as to justify their being banned from the election as becoming pro tanto "political organizations" when elections are nothing if not a political process and activity wherein the people, singly and collectively, make known their sovereign will?

— Are not political parties and civic organizations the best instruments devised and evolved by the wit, knowledge and experience of men to equalize opportunities and situations and to off-set the "built-in advantages" of men of wealth and fortune, power and prestige, name and fame?

— Even among the so-called non-partisan or independent candidates themselves, do not some enjoy "built-in advantages" as against the others, be they educational, material or moral, spiritual or physical?

— If a candidate cannot secure the active support of a political party or responsible civic organizations or the leaders thereof individually, would it be reasonable to expect that he could win the election all by himself?

— Is not the fact that as indicated by Senators Tañada and Diokno the loud and persistent clamor of organizations brought about the amendment to the Convention Act banning political parties from the election, the best proof of the necessity and effectivity of organizations?

— Does it not cast an unfair reflection on the integrity and patriotic sense of duty of the delegate to require that he be elected "beholden to no one" because he cannot be expected to be sufficiently representative of the people and would be bound by narrow political, religious or economic interests if elected with the aid and resources of organizations?

— Is it not preferable, as asked by Senator Tañada that rather than have a convention of ostensibly uncommitted delegates, that the candidates "present themselves to the people with definite views in mind which the electorate would assess and evaluate, accept or reject, by electing or not electing the candidate expressing these views" for "the essential strength of the representational approach to politics and government is exactly this — that from a confrontation of opposing interests and opinions in a forum what usually emerges is what is best for the largest number?"32 Is this not after what the constitutional system means, as stated by Senator Pelaez, sponsor of the Act, — "to encompass all the interests that exist within our society and to blend them into one harmonious and balanced whole?"

— May the right of the candidate and of his supporters to purchase legitimate press space promoting his candidacy be so constricted as to require them in effect to also espouse his opponents' candidacies under pain of severe penal sanctions?

8. If it be conceded that the premises of the main opinion are based on erroneous assumptions and conceptions as sought to be shown above, its conclusions justifying the Convention Act's infringement of the basic freedoms as being within the scope of the State's police power are necessarily vitiated by the same errors. This observation is reinforced by the established facts that the evils sought to be averted by the Act were perversion or prostitution of the electoral process by undue domination of the election by the political parties and by all other forms of organizations and denial of equal protection of the laws to the non-moneyed independent candidates who would not have a fighting chance against candidates of the "establishment" (i.e. the political parties and all other organizations). For the measures in question, far from suppressing these evils, would foment them by denying "non-political" candidates the very freedoms of effectively appealing to the electorate through the public media and of being supported by organized groups that would give them at least a fighting chance to win against candidates of the political kingpins.

9. I do not believe that the main opinion's anchoring of its ruling on the "clear-and-present danger" criterion is tenable under the circumstances. The trouble is, as Professor Freund well put it, "that the clear-and-present-danger test is an oversimplified judgment unless it account also of a number of other factors: the relative seriousness of the danger in comparison with the value of the occasion for speech or political activity; the availability of more moderate control than those which the state has closed and perhaps the specific intent with which the state has or activity is launched. No matter how rapidly we utter the phrase "clear and present danger," or how closely we hypenate the words, they are not a substitute for the weighing of values. They tend to convey a delusion of certitude when what is most certain is the complexity of the strands in the web of freedoms that the judge must disentangle."33 I subscribe to the views expressed last year by Mr. Justice Castro in Gonzales vs. Comelec,34 that "(H)owever useful the "clear and present danger" formulation was in the appraisal of a specific type of situation, there is fairly extensive recognition that it is not a rule of universal applicability and validity, not an automatic mechanism that relieves a court of the need for careful scrutiny of the features of a given situation and evaluation of the competing interests involved" and that the "clear and present danger" test has "minimum relevance to our task" of appraising the provisions of election statutes, such as Republic Act 4880 in that case, which outlaws prolonged election campaigns and electioneering, and Republic Act 6132 in the cases at bar, since "(T)his kind of constitutional testing would involve both speculation and prophecy of a sort for which this Court ... has neither the inclination nor any special competence."

10. I would state further, with Mr. Justice Castro's indulgence, that applying the various factors of the "balancing-of-interests" criterion as synthesized by him in Gonzales, supra, to wit,.

Although the urgency of the public interest sought to be secured by Congressional power restricting the individual's freedom, and the social importance and value of the freedom so restricted, "are to be judged in the concrete, not on the basis of abstractions," a wide range of factors are necessarily relevant in ascertaining the point or line of equilibrium. Among these are (a) the social value and importance of the specific aspect of the particular freedom restricted by the legislation; (b) the specific thrust of the restriction, i.e., whether the restriction is direct or indirect, whether or not the persons affected are few; (c) the value and importance of the public interest sought to be secured by legislation — the reference here is to the nature and gravity of the evil which Congress seeks to prevent; (d) whether the specific restriction decreed by Congress is reasonably appropriate and necessary for the protection of such public interest; and (e) whether the necessary safeguarding of the public interest involved may be achieved by some other measure less restrictive of the protected freedom.

the main opinion's conclusion that the State's objectives of preserving the purity of the ballot and achieving the desired equality of chances among all the candidates warrant in balance the abridgment of the basic liberties falls short of satisfying the requirements.

11. It is axiomatic that the highest of motives and the best of intentions are not enough to displace constitutional obstacles.ℒαwρhi৷ The Act's bans here are so broad, and encompassing against political activity for or against a candidate by any "political party, political group, political committee, civic, religious, professional, or other organization or organized group of whatever nature."35 There are so many technical prohibitions against organized group activity, denying man's very nature, and so much emphasis on individual action that two or more candidates and their 4th degree relatives and personal campaign staffs are enjoined by Comelec form deliberately and regularly campaigning together or joining and mutually supporting each other, under the severe penal sanctions prescribed by the Act. The ban against party or organized group support, far from equalizing the candidates' chances, leaves a vacuum which the local political leaders as individuals readily fill, and the candidates are left with no choice but to the support of the political leaders, which makes a mockery of the desideratum that the candidates should be "beholden to no one." The bans against free access to the press instead of equalizing chances, leave the candidates helpless in promoting their candidacy and petitioner has come to Court for the removal of such bans so that precisely he may have a fighting chance. The tragedy of it is that the bans are so unrealistic, "arbitrary, irrational and fascistic" in the words of Senator Tañada36 and fail futilely to accomplish the objectives of the Act, whereas the Act does contain a valid and effective limitation that "(T)he total expenditures made by a candidate or by any other person with the knowledge and consent of the candidate shall not exceed thirty-two thousand pesos," which if properly implemented, would check the very evils that the Act seeks to avert.

12. The basic and crucial test that the Act fails to pass is the constitutional test of reasonableness required by the due process clause.37 Due process limits the sweeping scope of the police power of the State and "forbids governmental action that is unreasonable and arbitrary, or opposed to the community's sense of fair play or to principles of liberty and justice, or not in harmony with a scheme of ordered liberty."38 The measure which is sought to be justified as falling within the police power should bear a reasonable relation to the proper governmental object and should not go so far beyond the necessity of the case as to be unreasonable, oppressive and arbitrary. This is not to encroach upon the field of legislative policy but simply with the premises and circumstances known to all, to enforce the requirements of due process that the challenged provisions of the Act in question bear some rational or substantial relation to the public welfare sought to be achieved, in order to justify the abridgment of the basic freedoms of expression, press and association. The Convention Act, to my mind, plainly fail the test. The means employed and the strictures decreed strongly tend to defeat, rather than promote, the very objectives of the Act of preventing perversion of the electoral process and "maximizing, if not approximating, equality of chances among the various candidates." So enervating are the provisions and effects of the Act that earnest candidates are left without recourse to question the candidacies of nuisance candidates bearing the same surnames reportedly put up by their opponents.

13. Suppression of free, open and public discussion of men and issues, particularly in times of elections, goes against our traditions of liberty and freedom. The Tañada Election Period Law (Republic Act 4880) cited in the main opinion was upheld by the Court in Gonzales as a valid exercise of the police power in its banning of year-round prolonged election campaigns and electioneering, and limiting the campaign period to 120 days immediately preceding a national election. The measure was directly in furtherance of the governmental objective of preventing the harmful effects on the public interest of an excessive and prolonged preoccupation with partisan political activities, although a majority of the Court voted against the validity of the Act's specific provisions against the making of speeches for or against any candidate during the prohibited period, etc. as being too ambiguously and broadly drawn to safeguard adequately the basic liberties affected. The provisions of the Tañada Election Period Law were basically concerned with a limitation of the period of the election campaign and in no way trenched upon the freedoms of the people and the candidates in the pursuit of their election campaign nor prohibited all party or organized group support, as does the Convention Act.

Let there be the fullest debate and discussion of the merits of the candidates and the issues. Let there be open support by political parties and organized groups of the candidates of their choice, so that the people may know who is supporting whom, instead of the present enforced silence and ignorance. If the people are disillusioned with the political parties and with politicians in general, as was aired in the debates on the Senate floor deliberations on the Act, it is their right to know who are the machine-backed candidates, so that they may vote them down as in the past. Let there be freedom, within the permitted limits of campaign expenditures which should be strictly enforced against the candidate publicized, for all to extol the merits of the candidates they support or to denounce the lack of merits of the candidates they oppose, so that the people may be enabled to freely and knowingly exercise their sovereign will. To paraphrase Brandeis,39 among freemen, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent election excesses are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment or sterilization of the rights of free speech, free press and free association.

14. The present election for delegates who will rewrite or amend our Constitution is of the greatest significance and it is vital that the people take the greatest interest and enjoy the fullest freedom to know the candidates, their concrete proposals for amendments and the interests that support them. Thus the delegates elected may be worthy of the people's trust and after their work is done, may say, as Recto did in 1935, that "it was as perfect as any human institution can hope to be perfect" with the injunction that "We are the Constitution in the sense that it can live only in us, through us, for us, and because of us." The fact that the office of delegate to the Constitutional Convention is non-contentious in the sense that opposing candidates for national or local offices are, does not warrant "experimenting" in the present election with the people's basic liberties for possible adoption for future elections, as manifested at the hearing hereof.

For those who have enjoyed the stillness of the present non-campaign, I would recall the words of the late Woodrow Wilson who said: "I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. It cannot be so easily discovered if you allow him to remain silent and look wise, but if you let him speak, the secret is out and the world knows that he is a fool. So it is by the exposure of folly that it is defeated; not by the seclusion of folly, and in this free air of free speech men get into that sort of communication with one another which constitutes the basis of all common achievement."40

The restrictions in Republic Act 6132 discussed in paragraph 2 hereof, together with the provision of section 12 (F) thereof directly challenged in the cases at bar, are in my opinion inextricably linked in their violation of the Constitution. I therefore vote for their exclusion from the statute.

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Footnotes

1 Jackson, Struggle for Judicial Supremacy, 316.

2 Story, Miscellaneous Writings, 158.

3 McReynolds, Newberry vs. U.S. 256 U.S. 232, 257.

4 Holmes, Leach vs. Carlile, 258 U.S. 138, 140.

5 Douglas, We the Judges, 319.

6 "The Constitution, Its amendments and the Rule of Law," address delivered by the Chief Justice on Constitution and Recto Day, February 9, 1970, prior to the enactment on August 24, 1970 of Republic Act 6132.

7 Sec. 18, Rep. Act 6132.

8 Sec. 12, (B), Rep. Act 6132.

9 Sec. 12 (E), idem.

10 Sec. 8 (A) par 1, idem; Imbong vs. Ferrer and Gonzales vs. Comelec, L-32422 and L-32443, Sept. 11, 1970.

11 Sec. 12 (C), idem.

12 Comelec Election Guide to the 1971 Constitutional Convention.

13 Sec. 12 (E), Rep. Act 6132.

14 Sec. 12 (H), idem.

15 At page 3, citing Imbong and Gonzales, see fn. 10.

16 Supra, fn. 10.

17 At page 3 and 12, main opinion.

18 Imbong-Gonzales decision, at p. 11.

19 Idem, at p. 12.

20 Idem.

21 Idem, at p. 15.

22 Idem, at p. 12.

23 Idem, at p. 14.

24 Idem.

25 Main opinion, at p. 5.

26 Main opinion, at p. 13.

27 See Senate speech of Senator Tañada against amendment of S. B. No. 77 on July 15, 1970.

28 See Senate speech of Senator Diokno against amendment of S. B. No. 77 on July 16, 1970.

29 See fn. 28.

30 Dissenting opinion of Justice Fernando in Imbong-Gonzales.

31 See fn. 27.

32 See fn. 27.

33 On Understanding the Supreme Court, 27-28.

34 L-27833, April 18, 1969; 27 SCRA 835, 898-901.

35 Sec. 8 (A) first par. R. A. 6132.

36 See fn. 27.

37 "Sec. 1. (1) No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws." Art. III, Phil. Constitution.

38 Tañada and Carreon, Political Law of the Phil. 7-8.

39 Concurring op., Whitney vs. California, 274 U. S. 356, 377.

40 2 Wilson's Selected Literary and Political Papers and Addresses, 333.

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