1/4/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly The question now is what measure of judicial scrutiny should be used to gauge the challenged provision. Over the years, guided by notable historical circumstances in our nation and related American constitutional law doctrines on the First Amendment, certain tests of judicial scrutiny were developed to determine the validity or invalidity of free speech restrictions in our jurisdiction. Foremost, a facial review of a law or statute encroaching upon the freedom of speech on the ground of overbreadth or vagueness is acceptable in our jurisdiction. Under the overbreadth doctrine, a proper governmental purpose, constitutionally subject to state regulation, may not be achieved by means that unnecessarily sweep its subject broadly, thereby invading the area of protected freedoms.[22] Put differently, an overbroad law or statute needlessly restricts even constitutionally-protected rights. On the other hand, a law or statute suffers from vagueness when it lacks comprehensible standards that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.[23] It is noteworthy, however, that facial invalidation of laws is generally disfavored as it results to entirely striking down the challenged law or statute on the ground that they may be applied to parties not before the Court whose activities are constitutionally protected. It disregards the case and controversy requirement of the Constitution in judicial review, and permits decisions to be made without concrete factual settings and in sterile abstract contexts,[24] deviating, thus, from the traditional rules governing constitutional adjudication. Hence, an on-its-face invalidation of the law has consistently been considered as a "manifestly strong medicine" to be used "sparingly and only as a last resort."[25] The allowance of a review of a law or statute on its face in free speech cases is justified, however, by the aim to avert the "chilling effect" on protected speech, the exercise of which should not at all times be abridged.[26] The Court elucidated: The theory is that "[w]hen statutes regulate or proscribe speech and no readily apparent construction suggests itself as a vehicle for rehabilitating the statutes in a single prosecution, the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression is deemed to justify allowing attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with narrow specificity." [27] (Emphasis supplied, citation omitted) Restraints on freedom of expression are also evaluated by either or a combination of the following theoretical tests, to wit: (a) the dangerous tendency doctrine,[28] which were used in early Philippine case laws; (b) the clear and present danger rule,[29] which was generally adhered to in more recent cases; and (c) the balancing of interests test,[30] which was also recognized in our jurisprudence. https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/65669 8/60