“That’s a great idea, sir! A classwide moratorium on campaigning just for tonight so everybody gets a much-needed break! I, for one, am exhausted from running all around town explaining to everybody why this country needs the strong-willed leadership of Leni Robredo because she embodies the honesty, integrity and competence that the Philippines needs in this very crucial junction of our quest to become the next economic miracle story of Asia!”
“You are such a troublemaker, Miss Deema,” I immediately chastised the pink-clad Miss Deema Niwala who was giving out pink lollipops to her classmates.
“These are LAW STUDENTS, your classmates, Miss Deema! What good will your candies do to win their intellectual votes??”
“Oh, you’ll be surprised sir! Juan Dimacaawat here challenged me to prove my claim that everything SUCKS in this campaign, save for Leni. So I gave them these pink lollipops and they all said ‘now we get the point!’ sir.”
I just scowled to show my displeasure and threatened the Alpha class, “If I see one candy wrapper lying on the floor, I’m giving this class a quiz everyday for the next two weeks!” sending all of them scrambling to check under their seats.
I banged the blackboard to restore decorum and refocus the class.
“The individual is the building block of society. The central idea behind the Social Contract is to create rules to govern common behavior. That often leads to trampling the individual’s right making him want to leave the social contract, causing society itself to fail,” I introed the lesson,
“Of course I trust that 3rd year law students must remember what the Social Contract is. But just to be sure, will you please summarize it for us again, Miss Grippa Baligtaran?”
The coffee farmer’s daughter from Natubleng didn’t falter, “The social contract is the hypothetical universal treaty among all men whereby everybody surrenders the enforcement of their individual rights to the irresistible regulating power of a central terror called the State, sir.”
“That’s good, Miss Grippa,” I said with approval, “now take note, class, that the implied occasion for when the State can intervene is only whenever ‘Citizen A’ is menacing ‘Citizen B.’ When we take part in the social contract, we want state guarantee of safety while we transact with others. But suppose it’s the opposite, suppose you want to withdraw from the crowd and be left alone, you must understand that the law also protects you in doing that. That is called the right of privacy. Miss Grippa, will you read your constitutional provision granting that right.”
“Yes, sir. Here it is in Article III, Section 1, first paragraph ‘The privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise as prescribed by law.’”
“That’s good. Class, you will not find any other provision regarding privacy in the rest of the Constitution. You may be disappointed, but that’s it. Take note that privacy has nothing to do with hiding your body, so it is not a physical issue. Privacy is about protecting your recorded communication, it’s about hiding your thoughts. Can you speculate why that is so, anyone?”
Juan Dimacaawat, the writer in the class stood up. “Sir, there is hardly any place you can go these days that is not somehow public, except in your own home and only if you live by yourself. Even at the top of a mountain, you are probably trespassing in somebody’s property. Anywhere you go, you will in somebody’s company. Even when you think you’re alone, there could be a CCTV camera aimed at you that you’re not aware of. You can be followed anywhere—except one place…”
“Aha! The last bastion of pure privacy,” I anticipated Juan’s point, “and where is this place, Juan?”
“In my mind, sir. Nobody can follow me there, I am the only one with access, unless I grant someone access into my mind—”
“And how do you do that, Juan?”
“By correspondence, sir, by communicating my thoughts to other people, they can enter the realm of my mind.”
“Good enough, Mr. Dimacaawat, you may sit down,” I prepared to polish Juan’s point a little bit. “whenever you talk, you are also communicating, spontaneously, and you can’t prevent people from hearing you and somehow remembering what you say. The problem is, when they REPEAT what you said, there’s no guarantee they can quote you 100% accurately. Chances are, they might actually misquote you and if they do, that must never get you in trouble. What is that principle, Miss Deema?”
“Res inter alios acta, sir,” teacher’s pet rattled off in Latin without batting an eyelash.
“In English please, Miss Deema “
“Sir, ‘no person must be prejudiced by the acts, omissions or declarations of another.” Miss Deema translated.
“Good. In short, nothing anyone does for me, or says about me shall bind me. That’s the essence of my privacy. Yes, Miss Kata, what is it?”
“So, sir, if some government official says I am a communist sympathizer because they interviewed my best friend in college and she says she remembers me participating in street protests, that shouldn’t count?”
“Miss Kata, even if your own mother said ‘ipinaglihi ko yang si Kata kay Joma Sison, yung founder ng CPP’ it doesn’t count!” sending the whole class bursting in guffaws.
“And, that, by the way class, is an example that combines both action—ipinaglihi—and declaration—founder ng CPP si Joma. Neither of that can be attributed to Miss Kata. In fact, even if the mother said ‘naku mag-best friend yang si Joma at yung anak ko!’ it still counts for nothing even if we were to assume that Joma Sison is guilty in some way for some NPA atrocities. Why is this so, Miss Laarnee Iwasan?”
“Sir, because there is no such thing as guilt by association,” Miss Laarnee answered.
“Correct. So you see class, many of these highly-sensational cases you see in the news are not even political cases. Oftentimes, they are just privacy issues.”
Then I shifted gears, “There’s no need to protect you from misquotation, because you cannot be prejudiced by it. However, when you write down your thoughts, or record it any other way, that’s a different story. This time, you can get into trouble, because you cannot deny what you yourself asserted. What principle is that, Miss Gladys Ondafli?” I called the older Ondafli twin.
“Principle of estoppel, sir, the opposite of res inter alios acta. This time, a person making a representation cannot deny it to another person who relied on that representation,” Miss Gladys recited.
“Very good. Now we get into the most delicate aspect of the privacy issue, class. Remember your classmate Juan pointed out that your mind is the only true private place. So I will say this without any reservation: you can conceive of any THOUGHT, you can even THINK of committing any crime in your mind, nobody will bother you. Now since your mind is finite and forgetful, you can even record your thoughts and those records are an extension of the privacy of your mind,” I could feel my students holding their breaths, waiting for the “but” part.
“But,” I said finally, “when you communicate your recorded thoughts, that’s correspondence. It is still considered private, but remember you have exited the bubble of 100% privacy—which was your mind—and taken the risk of getting your thoughts intercepted. So this time, the legal protection cannot be implicit, it has to be positively stated. And what is the price of having such right positively stated, as in the constitutional provision that Miss Grippa read?” I threw my glance at Miss Deema, who instantly got the hint.
“The right becomes limited by the condition ‘except upon lawful order of the court’ and ‘as may be prescribed by law,’sir,” Miss Deema quickly filled in.
“That’s correct. So let’s summarize here, class. The right of privacy of the mind is absolute. When you externalize your thoughts by recording them, the right remains absolute. When you communicate them or make them available to a any third party, that’s correspondence. The right of privacy persists but this time you invite judicial inquiry—and that tranforms the right of privacy from absolute to conditional. Comprende?”
The while Alpha class nodded their heads and sheepishly chorused, “Yeees, siiir….!”
Then a saw a familiar hand waving in the air, one with pink fingernail polish.
“Yes, Miss Deema, what is your next troublemaking question?”
“Can res inter alios acta also operate the OPPOSITE WAY, Sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it possible, is it legal or is it even moral for somebody to be BENEFITED by the acts, omissions and declarations of another?”
“I’m not sure I follow you, Miss Deema, can you be more specific?”
“Well, sir, suppose millions of public funds are used to construct school buildings, purchase police cars, ambulances, pay for public works like roads, barangay halls, rocknettings, etc—it’s not your money, it did not result from your work but from the work of a whole Congress, and really the accomplishment of all the Filipino people who voted these congressmen into office, you are just a temporary caretaker—but then you step forward, grab the p-r opportunity and take credit for all of these good things, shouldn’t that be a crime, sir??”
I stared hard at Miss Deema, trying to determine if she’s serious. My God, she was. Her eyes were glowering, her eyebrows knitted in the middle, she’s using that dagger look—and her classmates were all gawking at her, I could smell trouble and a long political speech coming.
So I just softly whispered, “Class dismissed…!” as the school bell rang mercifully in the background.*
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