Media Freedom And Criminal Defamation Risks In The Philippines

The Philippines was once a colony of Spain and the United States,and its legal system was influenced by both the civil law system and the common law system.Today,more than 30 years after the democratic transformation,the country still retains the criminal defamation system,which restricts the freedom of speech and press communication to a certain extent.This paper interprets the legal provisions of the Philippine defamation law in detail,analyzes the legal application of the Philippine defamation law through cases,and introduces the latest development of the Philippine defamation law,so as to have a deep understanding of the legal thought and media freedom.Combined with legal interpretation and cases,this paper analyzes the legal risks of criminal defamation in the Philippines to journalists and its causes and consequences.This paper adopts the methods of literature analysis and case study,focusing on the theme of "Philippine defamation law".The foreign references of this paper include the academic papers and comments of scholars in the United States and the Philippines on the Philippine defamation law.The judgments of the Supreme Court of the Philippines used in this paper are from the Philippine laws and justice databank,which contains the cause of action,judgment opinions and the reserved opinions of the justices.The legal system and judicial practice of the Philippines were deeply influenced by the colonization of the United States and Spain.The current Philippine defamation law absorbs the American Defamation Law with the idea of media freedom,but retains the written form of Spanish criminal law.The legal system and judicial practice of the Philippines protect the freedom of the media to a certain extent.In terms of legal system,the criminal code of the Philippines(1930)stipulates two important provisions closely related to media defamation to protect the news media from exercising their right to media freedom.In judicial practice,the Supreme Court of the Philippines introduced the principle of actual malice in the United States defamation law and other related cases to expand the defense of news media,so as to protect journalists in judicial practice.The reason why libel law causes legal risks to Filipino journalists lies in the lag of legal system and the uncertainty of judicial practice.From the perspective of legal system,firstly,due to the complicated colonial history,the crime of defamation in the Philippines is still in the criminal code(1930),and its specific provisions are also based on the legal principle of American media freedom from the 19th century to the 20th century,which leads to its lagging behind the development of today's international society.Second,it is still a criminal offence and the imprisonment clause is reserved,which can play a deterrent role to the news media.Third,the presumption of malice in defamation involves violation of the principle of presumption of innocence stipulated in the constitution of the Philippines in 1987.There is uncertainty in judicial practice.In addition to Article 361 of the criminal code(1930),in other cases,the court selectively takes authenticity as the defense.The principle of actual malice cited by the Supreme Court of the Philippines contradicts article 354 of the criminal law in terms of malice proof and authenticity defense.The court has been given a lot of discretion to decide which private figures can be transformed into public figures.The judge's personal factors greatly affect the result of the judgment.The libel suit in the Philippines limits the freedom of the media,which is "freedom without punishment after publication".Especially the crime of defamation,it makes the news media always in the shadow of criminal legal risk,the news media will always worry about being punished after publication,resulting in chilling effect.