CASE DIGEST : AQUINO vs MORATO

G.R. No. 92541 November 13, 1991  MA. CARMEN G. AQUINO-SARMIENTO, petitioner,  vs. MANUEL L. MORATO (in his capacity as Chairman of the MTRCB) and the MOVIE & TELEVISION REVIEW AND CLASSIFICATION BOARD, respondents.

 FACTS : In February 1989, petitioner, herself a member of respondent Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), wrote its records officer requesting that she be allowed to examine the board's records pertaining to the voting slips accomplished by the individual board members after a review of the movies and television productions. It is on the basis of said slips that films are either banned, cut or classified accordingly. Petitioner's request was eventually denied by respondent Morato on the ground that whenever the members of the board sit in judgment over a film, their decisions as reflected in the individual voting slips partake the nature of conscience votes and as such, are purely and completely private and personal On February 27, 1989, respondent Morato called an executive meeting of the MTRCB to discuss, among others, the issue raised by petitioner. In said meeting, seventeen (17) members of the board voted to declare their individual voting records as classified documents which rendered the same inaccessible to the public without clearance from the chairman. Thereafter, respondent Morato denied petitioner's request to examine the voting slips. However, it was only much later, i.e., on July 27, 1989, that respondent Board issued Resolution No. 10-89 which declared as confidential, private and personal, the decision of the reviewing committee and the voting slips of the members. 

ISSUE : WON Resolution No. 10-89 is valid

 HELD : The term private has been defined as "belonging to or concerning, an individual person, company, or interest"; whereas, public means "pertaining to, or belonging to, or affecting a nation, state, or community at large. As may be gleaned from the decree (PD 1986) creating the respondent classification board, there is no doubt that its very existence is public is character. it is an office created to serve public interest. It being the case, respondents can lay no valid claim to privacy. The right to privacy belongs to the individual acting in his private capacity and not to a governmental agency or officers tasked with, and acting in, the discharge of public duties. the decisions of the Board and the individual voting slips accomplished by the members concerned are acts made pursuant to their official functions, and as such, are neither personal nor private in nature but rather public in character. They are, therefore, public records access to which is guaranteed to the citizenry by no less than the fundamental law of the land