OSG maintains: Law against ‘offending religious feelings’ unconstitutional

For the second time, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has agreed with a convicted activist's position that the criminalization of "offending religious feelings" as currently defined by law is unconstitutional.

In an omnibus motion dated August 14, the OSG asked the Supreme Court (SC) to strike down Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code and clear Manila tour guide Carlos Celdran over the infamous stunt he pulled at the Manila Cathedral in 2010.

To protest the Catholic Church's opposition to the then-Reproductive Health Bill, Celdran disrupted an ecumenical service by holding up a placard bearing the word "Damaso," after the villainous friar in the classic Jose Rizal novel "Noli Me Tangere."

The SC upheld Celdran's sentence of up to one year, one month and a day for his allegedly offensive act, but he has once again found an ally in the OSG as he implores the High Court to reconsider.

Then under the leadership of former solicitor general Florin Hilbay, the OSG sided with Celdran and challenged Article 133 for being "simultaneously overbroad and void for vagueness."

Now led by chief government lawyer Jose Calida, the OSG maintained this stance, saying the law could amount to prior restraint on free speech.

Article 133 penalizes "offending the religious feelings," or performing acts "notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful" in "a place devoted to religious worship or during the celebration of any religious ceremony."

But this law, "by penalizing acts offensive to religious feelings through vague and overbroad standards, casts a chilling effect on what would otherwise be protected speech, and to that extent constitutes a prior content-based restraint on free speech," the OSG said.

Ordinary citizens need to "guess" the meaning of what constitutes the crime as defined by Article 133, and courts themselves could not agree on the factual basis for convicting Celdran, it explained.

The OSG added that Article 133 also violates the right to due process and "fails to hurdle the clear and present danger test."

Arguing to seek Celdran's acquittal, meanwhile, the OSG  said the Court of Appeals (CA) erred in upholding the activist's conviction when it based its decision on "pure conjectures."

Contrary to the CA decision that affirmed lower court rulings convicting Celdran, the OSG said reasonable doubt exists as to whether his act constitutes the crime of offending religious feelings.

"[T]he prosecution failed to prove, much less identify, a religious practice, dogma or ritual that was allegedly ridiculed by [Celdran's] act of displaying the placard 'DAMASO' in the Manila Cathedral resulting in an offense to religious feelings," the OSG said, also citing two witnesses who said they were not offended by the act despite being Catholics.

The OSG also asked that its motion for consideration be resolved by the SC en banc. — BM, GMA News