What is Sedition?

Don’t be surprised if government officials like Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez are suddenly enumerating the provisions of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines in justifying the continued media watch of the government, even though President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has already lifted Presidential Proclamation 1017 last March 3. The Code contains a number of provisions relating to national security offenses that the government can use to stifle the media and force it to toe the Palace line.

One of these provisions cites the crime of inciting to rebellion or insurrection (Art. 138) through “speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, banners or other representations to the same end.” Rebellion or insurrection is committed by “rising publicly and taking arms” against the government for the purpose of removing the government or its laws, among others.

Under Art. 154, any person can be held liable by publishing false news that may endanger the public order, or cause damage to the State’s interest or credit. Under this article, anyone can also be held liable if he or she encourages disobedience to the law or to the authorities or praises, justifies, or extols any act punishable under the law, “by words, utterances or speeches.”

Another controversial provision cites the crime of inciting to sedition (Art. 142). Inciting to sedition is different from actual sedition, which is committed by those rising up “publicly and tumultuously” in order to forcibly attain  acts such as preventing the government or an official from freely exercising government functions or the promulgation or execution of a law. Inciting to sedition refers to a crime that is committed by someone who, without taking any direct part in the actual crime itself, “incites others to the accomplishment of any of the acts which constitute sedition, by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, cartoons, banners, or other representations tending to the same end.”

In a baseline study jointly made by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and Article 19, a free expression advocacy group based in London, both said that “an expression or news can only be categorized as ‘endangering the public order’ if it passes a three-part test. Entitled Freedom of Expression and the Media in the Philippines, the study is just one of a series of baseline studies made by Article 19 and partner organizations in seven southeast Asian countries. The study was published in December last year.

The test falls under Principle 6 of the Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, which the baseline study described as a “set of principles on the right to freedom of expression and national security endorsed by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression and recommended to States for their consideration by the UN Commission on Human Rights.”

Principle 6 states that expression or news can be considered a threat to national security only if the government can demonstrate and prove that:

1. the expression is intended to incite imminent violence;
2. it is likely to incite such violence; and
3. there is a direct and immediate connection between the expression and the likelihood or occurence of such violence.

Given this three-part test, can the government prove that Daily Tribune editor-publisher Ninez Cacho Olivares and two of her paper’s columnists should be charged with “inciting to sedition”? – Hector Bryant L.Macale

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