The constitutional right to privacy was discussed in the decision promulgated on 18 October 2011 by the Philippine Supreme Court (SC) in the case of Briccio “Ricky” A. Pollo v. Chairperson Karina Constantino-David, et al. (G.R. No. 181881), which involved a search of an office computer assigned to a government employee who was charged administratively and eventually dismissed from the service and where the employee’s personal files stored in the computer were used by the government employer as evidence of misconduct.

The majority of the SC, composed of eleven justices headed by Associate Justice Martin S. Villarama, Jr. as the ponente, upheld the government employer’s policy of no expectation of privacy and waiver of privacy rights that put its employees on notice that they have no expectation of privacy in anything they create, store, send or receive on the office computers, and that the government employer may monitor the use of the computer resources using both automated or human means which implies that on-the-spot inspections may be done to ensure that the computer resources were used only for legitimate business purposes.

On the other hand, Associate Justice Lucas P. Bersamin (joined by three other justices) submitted a concurring and dissenting opinion which, while upholding the legality of the government employer’s policy, held that the government employee concerned was entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of the communications created, stored, sent or received after office hours through the office computer as to which he must be protected, considering that OM No. 10 (the office memorandum containing the government employer’s policy) contained an exception that actually gave the employee concerned privileged access to the Internet for knowledge search, information exchange,...

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