Freedom of Thought and Belief: Serious and Active

Excerpted from Reyes, Ed Aurelio C., Press Freedom: The People's Right, "Part One: Back to Basics," (MANILA: Philippine Movement for Press Freedom, 1992) p. 7 (Emphasis in the original)

.......Freedom of thought and belief is both serious and active.
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.......Serious because it has to go beyond the freedom to deliberately indulge in endless fantasies. The human mind instinctively thirsts for the truth and one can never really deceive oneself to believe what he or she knows to be untrue.
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.......This freedom is innately and necessarily active and cannot be preserved in a state of impotence. The right to liberty and to pursuit of happiness therefore not only involves the freedom of movement of a person within a country's borders but also necessarily encompasses the freedom of one's mind, of one's eyes and ears, and of one's tongue, as well as one's prerogative to engage in actions not explicitly violative of the rights and legitimate interests of other persons. Freedom of thought is non-existent if imprisoned in one's own skull!
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.......On this matter, the late "Chino" Roces, responding to speakers at a tribute shortly before his death, fired a volley of rhetorical questions: "Is freedom of speech just for the speaker to be able to say his piece, get things off his chest? Or is there a corollary freedom to be heard and be listened to? Does freedom of speech lose its value if what we express is simply papered over, dismissed with a shrug, ignored?"
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.......Toward the end of that same response, "Ka Chino" gave what we can take as his own answer: "I pray you will offer your lives again and again not only to protect freedom of speech, but also to insist on your right to be heard and listened to as the truly sovereign people."

(This Part one of the book will be republished soon in support of the Freedom of Information Bill now pending in the House of Representatives of the Philippine Congress.)