Batas Mauricio
VICE President Leni Robredo, with due respect, should be more circumspect in making statements that tend to insult President Duterte, especially on matters of official government policies. Duterte, after all, remains to be the boss of everyone in government, including her, who is actually irrelevant while Duterte is there.
Many are of the view that what Leni said on Wednesday as a reaction to Duterte’s statements against the US, the European Union, and some world leaders, had the effect of denigrating Duterte, simply because her call for all government officials to think first before saying anything implied that Duterte had not been thinking first before proceeding with his outbursts.
Even if Leni really believed deep inside her that Duterte is not in the habit of thinking first before talking, prudence dictates that she should keep her beliefs to herself, especially if they disparage the man that agreed to give her a position in the Cabinet even if she belonged to a rabidly anti-Duterte political party, and even if she said she wanted no one to be president except her own candidate in the last elections.
At the very least, Leni should endeavor to show her gratitude to Duterte at all times that she is in his Cabinet. Otherwise, if she thinks she cannot really stomach anymore Duterte’s style of expressing himself, she must resign her position first. Then and only then can she hit him, even in wild abandon, and no one will question her.
On the other hand, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana let out a mouthful also on Wednesday when he claimed that Duterte, his boss, might have been fed with wrong information about the state of the Philippines’ joint military exercises and defense agreements with the United States.
Whether Lorenzana was aware of it or not, his statement threw wide open the schism or division in the Duterte government between those who support the US and those who want to terminate the US-Philippine relations, and bring our country in an alliance with Russia and China, both communist countries.
Indeed, who could have fed the President with wrong information, as Lorenzana claimed, on US-Philippine relations other than those who are close to the President and who are known to be the local allies of the communists from Russia and China? The defense secretary’s outburst had the effect of blaming these local allies over Duterte’s belligerence with the US and the European Union? The question is, where is this headed for?
There was a very interesting legal question that confronted the Filipino nation recently with respect to the video footage of a man and a woman having sex which the House of Representatives initially sought to air during its investigation into the alleged links of Sen. Leila de Lima to the illegal drugs trade at the national penitentiary.
Can the House publicly show the contents of that video, said to be that of de Lima, in the course of its official legislative inquiry? My answer, based on what Republic Act 9995, or the Anti Photo and Video Voyeurism Act of 2009, provides is that, yes, the House can show the contents of that video.
The law clearly allows the showing of a video footage of a person or group of persons doing sex, when it is clear that the video was taken with the performers not having any a reasonable expectation of privacy. There could be no violation of the law when the sex video was filmed with the full knowledge of the performers of the sexual act that the footage would not be for private viewing only.
Let us see what the applicable parts of Republic Act 9995 say: “‘Photo or video voyeurism’ means the act of taking photo or video coverage of a person or group of persons performing sexual act or any similar activity or of capturing an image of the private area of a person or persons without the latter’s consent, under circumstances in which such person/s has/have a reasonable expectation of privacy...”
Clearly, the important phrase in the law is the last part that which says “... under circumstances in which such person/s has/have a reasonable expectation of privacy...”
If the doers of the sexual act did not expect that their sexual act would be a private matter between the two of them, but that in fact they knew that the video footage showing what they were doing would be exhibited in public later, there is no prohibition against the exhibition of that video.
If the video that the House wanted to show was the same video that circulated in some social networking sites earlier, it would appear that the woman shown therein knew they were being filmed, as she kept on looking back at what obviously was the camera recording what she and her partner were doing. This alone would show that the woman, at least, was aware that they were being filmed, thereby debunking any pretense at privacy.
Since the woman did not expect that the filming of her sexual act would be a private matter between her and her part, there is no prohibition against its public showing. What is more, those who already saw the video have been saying it is not de Lima who is shown therein. So, if it is not de Lima, and it was somebody else who obviously wanted herself filmed as she was doing the “act”, the senator cannot lawfully object to its showing, can she?
Finally, the video in question, assuming it is de Lima that is contained in it, partakes of the nature of a commercial film, shot and filmed with the full knowledge of the actors and actresses who participated in the act. If that were so, the video could be shown publicly, subject only to the usual restrictions imposed by the Movie-TV and radio Classification Board (MTRCB).
E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com
