Tourist guide Carlos Celdran appeals conviction for ‘Damaso’ stunt

Facing jail time for his “Damaso” stunt during church rites five years ago, tour guide and reproductive health law advocate Carlos Celdran has appealed his conviction with the Supreme Court, asserting that what he did was not a crime.

In a petition for review filed on Friday, Celdran asked the high court to set aside the Court of Appeals’ (CA) Dec. 12, 2014 ruling and Aug. 14, 2015 resolution that affirmed his conviction for “offending the religious feelings” when he held up a placard with the word “Damaso” at the Manila Cathedral on Sept. 30, 2010.

Celdran’s act happened in front of then Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, the Papal Nuncio and other prominent members of Manila’s Catholic congregation at the height of debates on the reproductive health bill, a measure fiercely opposed by the Catholic church.

The church had taken Celdran’s “Damaso” as a reference to the fictional character symbolizing oppressive friars in Dr. Jose Rizal’s subversive novel “Noli Me Tangere,” which criticized the Spanish colonial rule in the country.

Court records showed that Celdran shouted “don’t meddle with politics” as he was being escorted out of the church. He later apologized for the disruption.

Still, Celdran was sentenced to an “indeterminate” prison term of a minimum of two months and 21 days and a maximum of one year, a month and 11 days.

He has lost at least four prior appeals to his conviction: at the Metropolitan Trial Court (MeTC) where he was first convicted in 2012, the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) in 2013, and the appellate court last year.

“Petitioner Carlos Celdran submits that his conviction by the MeTC, which was affirmed by the RTC and the CA, was a grave error. The decisions of the lower courts deviated from the jurisprudence of the Philippine Supreme Court and the sentencias of the courts of Spain from whose statute books we had borrowed Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code,” read the petition.

“But more importantly, he argues that he cannot be convicted under a penal statute that violates the most cherished constitutional rights we have under the Constitution: the rights to Due Process, Equality before the Law, and the Freedom of Speech,” the plea said.

In his petition, Celdran said the high court should declare as unconstitutional Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code, which the appellate court, in denying his earlier appeal, upheld as a provision penalizing “a crime against the free exercise of religion clause mandated by our Constitution.”