Were a right of reply in place in Spain from 1888 to the
1895, half of the space in "La Solidaridad" would have been devoted to pieces
enumerating the blessings showered on these islands by Spanish colonial rule and
extolling the friars for standing as bulwarks against the spread of heretical
and seditious ideas championed by the likes of Jose Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar and
Graciano Lopez Jaena.
Let us give a sample of the staple of advocacies that Soli
carried in its every issue: representation in the Cortes; curbing of the abuses
of the friars; full extension of the coverage of the Spanish civil and penal
codes to the Indios; expansion of public education; and some measure of
self-rule.
Del Pilar only had insults for friars, and the latter did not
lack of defenders in conservative newspapers in Barcelona and Madrid. But Del
Pilar and Lopez Jaena had full editorial control of their publication. They
would have been dumbfounded by suggestions that apologists of the Dominicans and
Agustinians be given equal space for rebuttal. This at a time when liberalism
had yet to decisively defeat conservatism in Spain, a victory which by the way
would come only a century later with the downfall of Franco.
Here we are now in the 21st century and what Spanish
reactionaries could not do meddle with the freedom of the press some people
have no compunction of making a stab at, via a legislated right of reply.
Many have already pointed out the impracticability of
legislating a right of reply. We will instead focus on the question of
principle. The provision on the Bill of Rights that says no law shall be passed
abridging the freedom of the press is based on the recognition that in the
hierarchy of values, the right to advocate and its obverse, the right to
criticize, is of greater weight than other values.
This springs from the fact that in any social arrangement
based on free intercourse of autonomous and rational members, there will
invariably be disagreements on what constitutes the good. Every member of that
society must be free to say what he wants to say. And that extends to any
instrument used to amplify his voice be it a soapbox, a bullhorn and, yes, a
newspaper.
The same right is enjoyed by everybody else and in the clash
of ideas, the better argument, hopefully, will prevail.
No, we are not oblivious to the reality of the "massification,"
if we may use the term, of the organs of dissemination of news and opinions
that is, the mass media. The newspapers and the broadcast networks indeed
usually peddle opinions carved out from suspiciously the same mold.
But there is always the room for the heretical, the aberrant, the subversive
publication. This is the constitutionally protected area which must be defended
at all cost. And if by extension, the mainstream gets the same protection in the
process, it is a small price to pay for the freedom even if unexercised in
practice - of those we do not agree with.
