Terence L.

Valdehueza
Legal Research
Freedom of Religion
Definition of Freedom.
Freedom starts with a principle of self-control, also known as self-ownership. In a free society,
each and every person has legal control of their own body and mind. As such, the concept
of freedom refers to a certain type of political empowerment. It refers specifically to equal
empowerment. In other words, a free society is one with an equal distribution of legal rights and in
which each and every person has as much legal rights as possible.
Because freedom entails political equality, freedom can only logically entail as much legal rights as
compatible with the same legal rights in others. In a free society, any one person cannot have so many
legal rights that all other people could not logically have the same amount of legal rights. For example,
freedom does not include the legal right to enslave someone else because freedom includes the legal
right to not be enslaved. In another example, freedom does not include the legal right to nondefensively punch other people in the face against their will because freedom includes the legal right to
not be offensively punched.
Basically, a free person has the legal allowance to do whatever he or she wants insofar as he or she does
not offensively harm or coerce other people against those other people's wills. Remember, the
limitation is a logical requirement. Freedom obviously cannot include the legal right to limit other
people's freedom because that would be illogical.
Definition of Religion.
A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate
humanity to an order of existence. Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that
are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their
beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a
preferred lifestyle. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.
Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes
adherence, or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include
rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration of a deity, gods or goddesses, sacrifices, festivals,
feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance,
public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.
Freedom of Religion according to the different Constitutions of the Philippines:
I.
The Malolos Constitution
Article 5. The State recognizes the freedom and equality of all religions, as well as the
separation of the Church and State.
II.

The 1935 Constitution

Article 5, Section 7 of the Bill of Rights. No law shall be made respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and the free exercise
and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or

III.

preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise
of civil or political rights.
The 1943 Constitution during the Japanese Occupation
Article 7, Section 3 of the Duties and Rights of the Citizen. No law shall be made
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and no
religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.

IV.

The 1973 Constitution

Article 4, Section 8 of the Bill of Rights. No law shall be made respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and
enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference,
shall be forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or
political rights.

V.

The 1986 Provisional Freedom Constitution

Article 1, Section 1 of the Provisional Constitution adopted the provisions of Article 4 of
the 1973 Constitution, as amended.

VI.

The 1987 Constitution

Article 3, Section 5 of the Bill of Rights. No law shall be made respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and
enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference,
shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or
political rights.

Freedom of Religion.
Freedom of religion or freedom of belief is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual
or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and
observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to
follow any religion. The freedom to leave or discontinue membership in a religion or religious group in
religious terms called "apostasy" is also a fundamental part of religious freedom, covered by Article
18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a declaration adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris.
Freedom of religion is considered by many people and nations to be a fundamental human right.
In a country with a state religion, freedom of religion is generally considered to mean that the
government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does
not persecute believers in other faiths.
Freedom of Religion as Preferred Right.
According to Atty. Romel Regalado Bagares in the Re-Configuring Our Social Imaginary: A
Rightful Place for God-talk in the Filipino Public sphere, he states that, the religion clauses are not a
repudiation of religion; they are in fact, a recognition of the important role religion plays in the
democratic polity. They are fundamentally only a restriction, indeed, a prohibition, on any governmental
act that tends to promote one religion over the others, or discriminate against one in favor of the
others. It is also a protection against any state-sponsored move coercing people to act against their
religious consciences.

He further added that in Philippine jurisprudence, the freedom of religion, along with the
freedom of expression, occupies a preferred position; that is, it occupies the top rung in the ladder of
rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Hence in a constitutional adjudication involving the freedom of
religion versus another freedom, the former should be privileged over the latter. The preferred
position approach to Constitutional adjudication of rights is borrowed from American jurisprudence, and
was first broached in a well-known footnote by Justice Stone in the case of United States v. Carolene
Products Co: there may be a narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when
legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitutionality, such as those of
the first ten amendments The American Supreme Court later on fully expressed this in the 1943 case
of Murdock v. Pennyslvania: Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion are in a
preferred position.
Case Involving Freedom of Religion.
The Supreme Court of the Philippines, ruling in 2003 and 2006 in the landmark case of Estrada
vs. Escritor, established the doctrine of benevolent neutrality-accommodation. The 2006 ruling, penned
by former Chief Justice Puno, explained benevolent-neutrality in the context of U.S. jurisprudence as
follows:
Under the benevolent-neutrality theory, the principle underlying the First Amendment is that
freedom to carry out ones duties to a Supreme Being is an inalienable right, not one dependent
on the grace of legislature. Religious freedom is seen as a substantive right and not merely a
privilege against discriminatory legislation. With religion looked upon with benevolence and not
hostility, benevolent neutrality allows accommodation of religion under certain circumstances.
The ruling went on to cite a U.S. Supreme Court decision which had held that if prohibiting the
exercise of religion is merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision,
the First Amendment has not been offended. Though concurring in the decision,
Justice O'Connor dissented strongly from the rationale, arguing that a compelling state interest test
should have been applied.
Echoing Justice O'Connor's point from the U.S. case, the ruling in Estrada vs. Escritor went on to
quote her as having said that strict scrutiny is appropriate for free exercise challenges because [t]he
compelling interest test reflects the First Amendments mandate of preserving religious liberty to the
fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society.
The ruling then declared Underlying the compelling state interest test is the notion that free
exercise is a fundamental right and that laws burdening it should be subject to strict scrutiny, and
summarized a three-part compelling state interest test by quoting Michael W. McConnell as follows:
If the plaintiff can show that a law or government practice inhibits the free exercise of his
religious beliefs, the burden shifts to the government to demonstrate that the law or practice is
necessary to the accomplishment of some important (or compelling) secular objective and that
it is the least restrictive means of achieving that objective. If the plaintiff meets this burden and
the government does not, the plaintiff is entitled to exemption from the law or practice at issue.
In order to be protected, the claimants beliefs must be sincere, but they need not necessarily
be consistent, coherent, clearly articulated, or congruent with those of the claimants religious
denomination. Only beliefs rooted in religion are protected by the Free Exercise Clause; secular
beliefs, however sincere and conscientious, do not suffice.

The ruling noted that the then-current prevailing view under U.S. law is that there are no
required accommodation under the First Amendment, although it permits of legislative
accommodations. Considering Philippine jurisprudence, though, the ruling said:
By juxtaposing the American Constitution and jurisprudence against that of the Philippines, it is
immediately clear that one cannot simply conclude that we have adoptedlock, stock and
barrelthe religion clauses as embodied in the First Amendment, and therefore, the U.S.
Courts interpretation of the same. Unlike in the U.S. where legislative exemptions of religion
had to be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court as constituting permissive accommodations, similar
exemptions for religion are mandatory accommodations under our own constitutions.
These landmark decisions in Estrada vs. Escritor established that benevolent neutralityaccommodation is the framework by which free exercise cases must be decided in the Philippines. This
amounts to a requirement that any law which conflicts with a violator's sincerely held religious beliefs
must pass a strict scrutiny test in order to be enforceable.