AYER PRODUCTIONS PTY. LTD. AND MCELROY & MCELROY FILM PRODUCTIONS, PETITIONERS, VS. HON. IGNACIO M. CAPULONG AND JUAN PONCE ENRILE, RESPONDENTS.

Ayer Productions versus Enrile

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari brought by an Australian film maker and his production company against a trial judge and Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. The petitioners sought to produce and film a six hour television mini-series about the peaceful change of government at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in February 1986, and the trial court enjoined them from doing so at the instance of the Senator, who invoked his right of privacy. The case matters because it is the Supreme Court's clearest statement that freedom of speech and of expression extends to motion pictures, including those produced by foreign owned and commercially motivated companies, and that the right of privacy of a public figure is narrower than that of an ordinary citizen and cannot be invoked to resist the publication of matters of public interest.

Procedural History

Private respondent Juan Ponce Enrile filed a complaint with an application for a temporary restraining order and writ of preliminary injunction before the Regional Trial Court of Makati, Branch 134, presided over by respondent Judge Ignacio M. Capulong, seeking to enjoin the petitioners from producing the mini-series. The trial court issued a temporary restraining order ex parte the day after the complaint was filed, and later issued a writ of preliminary injunction ordering the petitioners and all persons under contract with them to cease and desist from producing and filming the mini-series and from making any reference to the private respondent or his family, upon the filing of a bond of 2,000,000 pesos. The petitioners separately came to the Supreme Court by petitions for certiorari with urgent prayers for a restraining order. The Court consolidated the petitions, required a consolidated answer, and granted a limited temporary restraining order that partially enjoined the implementation of the trial court's order while allowing the petitioners to resume filming those portions of the mini-series that make no reference to the private respondent or to any character identifiable with him. The private respondent then filed his consolidated answer invoking in the main a right of privacy.

Facts

Sometime in 1987, Hal McElroy, an Australian film maker, and his production company Ayer Productions envisioned the filming, for commercial viewing and for Philippine and international release, of the historic peaceful struggle of the Filipinos at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue. They discussed the project with a local movie producer, who suggested that they consult the appropriate government agencies and also General Fidel Ramos and Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who had played major roles in the events to be filmed. The proposed motion picture, entitled The Four Day Revolution, was endorsed by the Movie Television Review and Classification Board and the other agencies consulted, and General Ramos signified his approval.

In a letter dated 16 December 1987, Hal McElroy informed Senator Enrile about the projected motion picture and enclosed a synopsis. The film was to be a docu-drama in six hours, creating four fictitious characters whose stories are woven through the real events, and using actual documentary footage as background. On 21 December 1987, Senator Enrile replied that he would not and will not approve of the use, appropriation, reproduction or exhibition of his name, or picture, or that of any member of his family in any cinema or television production, film or other medium for advertising or commercial exploitation, and advised that no reference whatsoever should be made to him or his family. The petitioners acceded, deleted his name from the movie script, and proceeded to film.

On 23 February 1988, Senator Enrile filed his complaint, alleging that the production of the mini-series without his consent and over his objection constituted an obvious violation of his right of privacy. The trial court issued a temporary restraining order ex parte the next day, and on 16 March 1988 issued the writ of preliminary injunction. The petitioners moved to dismiss, contending that the mini-series would not involve the private life of the Senator or his family and that a preliminary injunction would amount to a prior restraint on their right of free expression.

Issues

• Whether or not the production and filming of the mini-series is protected by the constitutional freedom of speech and of expression, including for a foreign owned and commercially motivated motion picture company.
• Whether or not the production and filming of the mini-series constitutes an unlawful intrusion upon the private respondent's right of privacy.
• Whether or not the trial court's writ of preliminary injunction was a valid exercise of authority or an invalid prior restraint.

Applicable Provisions

The decision rests on the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and of expression, which the Court describes as including the freedom to film and produce motion pictures and to exhibit them in theaters or diffuse them through television. The Court also treats the right of privacy as a right recognized in law but not absolute. The decision does not quote a specific constitutional or statutory text in full; it construes these rights through the balancing of interests and the clear and present danger tests, and it relies on the doctrine of Lagunzad versus Vda. de Gonzales, where the Court held that the limits of freedom of expression are reached when expression touches upon matters of essentially private concern.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the freedom of speech and of expression includes the freedom to film and produce motion pictures and to exhibit them. Motion pictures are a principal medium of mass communication for information, education and entertainment. This freedom is available both to locally owned and to foreign owned motion picture companies, and the circumstance that film production is a commercial activity expected to yield monetary profit is not a disqualification for availing of the freedom. To exclude commercially owned and operated media from the exercise of constitutionally protected freedom would drastically contract those liberties.

On the second issue, the Court held that the right of privacy, like the right of free expression, is not absolute. A limited intrusion into a person's privacy is permissible where that person is a public figure and the information sought to be published about him constitutes matters of a public character. The right of privacy cannot be invoked to resist publication and dissemination of matters of public interest. The Court found that the subject matter of The Four Day Revolution, the non-bloody change of government at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and the train of events leading to it, is clearly one of public interest and concern, indeed of international interest, and has passed into the public domain. The film is not a biography of the Senator and is not focused upon him; it is compelled, if it is to be historical, to refer to the role he played. The intrusion entailed is limited to what is reasonably necessary to keep the film a truthful historical account. The Senator was a public figure precisely because of his participation as a principal actor in the culminating events of the change of government, and the right of privacy of a public figure is necessarily narrower than that of an ordinary citizen.

On the third issue, the Court held that what was involved was a prior and direct restraint upon the exercise of speech and expression. Because of the preferred character of these constitutional rights, a weighty presumption of invalidity vitiates measures of prior restraint. The trial judge should have stayed his hand, for the projected motion picture was as yet uncompleted and had not been exhibited to any audience, and neither the private respondent nor the trial judge knew what the completed film would precisely look like. There was no clear and present danger of any violation of the right of privacy. The Court distinguished Lagunzad, where there was no prior restraint of any kind and the movie producer had in fact completed and exhibited the film.

Doctrine

Freedom of speech and of expression includes the freedom to film and produce motion pictures and to exhibit them, and it protects foreign owned and commercially motivated production companies as well. The right of privacy is not absolute; it cannot be invoked to resist publication and dissemination of matters of public interest, and a limited intrusion is permissible where the person is a public figure and the information is of a public character. The right of privacy of a public figure is necessarily narrower than that of an ordinary citizen. A prior restraint on speech carries a weighty presumption of invalidity, and no such restraint may issue absent a clear and present danger of a violation of a right the complainant may lawfully assert.

Disposition

The Court granted the petitions, set aside the writ of preliminary injunction issued by the trial court, and allowed the petitioners to produce and film the mini-series.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that the right of privacy cannot be invoked to resist publication and dissemination of matters of public interest, and the privacy of a public figure is narrower than that of an ordinary citizen. Examiners use this case to test the conflict between freedom of expression and the right of privacy, the validity of prior restraints, and the protection of commercial and foreign owned media under the constitutional guarantee.