AYER
PRODUCTIONS PTY. LTD. and McELROY & McELROY FILM PRODUCTIONS, Petitioners,
v. HON. IGNACIO M. CAPULONG and JUAN PONCE ENRILE, Respondents. [G.R. No.
L-82380. April 29, 1988.]; and HAL McELROY, Petitioner, v. HON. IGNACIO M.
CAPULONG, in his capacity as Presiding Judge of the Regional Trial Court of
Makati, Branch 134 and JUAN PONCE ENRILE, Respondents. [G.R. No. L-82398. April
29, 1988.].
See - www.chanrobles.com
“x x x.
10. ID.; ID.;
ID.; ID.; ID.; PUBLIC FIGURE, DEFINED. — "A public figure has been defined
as a person who, by his accomplishments, fame, or mode of living, or by
adopting a profession or calling which gives the public a legitimate interest
in his doings, his affairs, and his character, has become a ‘public personage.’
He is, in other words, a celebrity. Obviously to be included in this category
are those who have achieved some degree of reputation by appearing before the
public, as in the case of an actor, a professional baseball player, a pugilist,
or any other entertainer. The list is, however, broader than this. It includes
public officers, famous inventors and explorers, war heroes and even ordinary
soldiers, an infant prodigy, and no less a personage than the Grand Exalted
Ruler of a lodge. It includes, in short, anyone who has arrived at a position
where public attention is focused upon him as a person.
11. ID.; ID.;
ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; PRIVATE RESPONDENT ENRILE IS A PUBLIC FIGURE. — Private
respondent is a "public figure" precisely because, inter alia, of his
participation as a principal actor in the culminating events of the change of
government in February 1986. Because his participation therein was major in
character, a film reenactment of the peaceful revolution that fails to make
reference to the role played by private respondent would be grossly
unhistorical. The right of privacy of a "public figure" is
necessarily narrower than that of an ordinary citizen. Private respondent has
not retired into the seclusion of simple private citizenship. He continues to
be a "public figure." After a successful political campaign during
which his participation in the EDSA Revolution was directly or indirectly
referred to in the press, radio and television, he sits in a very public place,
the Senate of the Philippines.
12. ID.; ID.;
ID.; ID.; ID.; POTRAYAL OF PRIVATE RESPONDENT MUST BE RELATED TO PUBLIC FACTS.
— The line of equilibrium in the specific context of the instant case between
the constitutional freedom of speech and of expression and the right of privacy,
may be marked out in terms of a requirement that the proposed motion picture
must be fairly truthful and historical in its presentation of events. There
must, in other words, be no knowing or reckless disregard of truth in depicting
the participation of private respondent in the EDSA Revolution. There must,
further, be no presentation of the private life of the unwilling private
respondent and certainly no revelation of intimate or embarrassing personal
facts. The proposed motion picture should not enter into what Mme. Justice
Melencio-Herrera in Lagunzad referred to as "matters of essentially
private concern." To the extent that "The Four Day Revolution"
limits itself in portraying the participation of private respondent in the EDSA
Revolution to those events which are directly and reasonably related to the
public facts of the EDSA Revolution, the intrusion into private respondent’s
privacy cannot be regarded as unreasonable and actionable. Such portrayal may
be carried out even without a license from private Respondent.
X x x.”
