The gruesome killing of five young girls in Nickle Mines, an Amish village in Pennsylvania, shocked the world. Having once visited the picturesque Lancaster County, where numerous Amish communities are found, the Warrior Lawyer could never conceive that such a pastoral place could ever be the scene of such senseless carnage. I found the Amish to be taciturn, even shy, although not unfriendly.

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Secretary of Justice Raul “Not Speedy” Gonzalez has been quoted as saying that the government cannot just remove or ban the giant billboards in Metro Manila because these structures are part of the right to free speech. Following Gonzalez’ reasoning, ordinary citizens like us will just have to suffer and risk a potentially fatal encounter with these killer ads in a storm in order to uphold the Constitutional guarantee of free speech. Death by free speech, so to speak.

But freedom of expression has a number of recognized limitations, one of which is if such would directly harm other persons.The classic example is an individual shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there really was no such fire. The ensuing panic and stampede could result in injury and even death for many. Such forms of expression, which kills under the certain circumstances, does not deserve Constitutional protection.

With this lame argument favoring the retention of dangerous billboards, Gonzalez has once again shown that his reputation for making inappropriate, and downright peculiar, pronouncements at the wrong time is well-deserved. I would be funny if it were not so sad.

It was just another workday for Felipe Gumapon, a driver working for minimum wages in the chaotic streets of Manila . True, he was driving through the worst typhoon to hit the metropolis in a decade. But in his sixty odd years, he had weathered a number of storms and, by the grace of God, he would survive this one. Besides, there was a family to feed.

As he drove in the Guadalupe area of EDSA, a giant metal billboard, buffeted by Typhoon Melenyo’s winds, came crashing down on on his delivery vehicle. His skull was split open like a peeled, mature coconut. His death could literally be attributed to an advertisement.

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