JDV: Cha-cha will prevent future coups

Military adventurists could be stopped from using the Constitution to justify any power grab if a provision making the Armed Forces the "protector of the people and the state" would be removed, Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said yesterday.

De Venecia said the framers of the Constitution had not intended Article 2, Section 3 to be invoked as a pretext for military intervention in national politics.

"Over the years the 1987 Charter has been in force, a succession of adventurist military rebels have used (the provision) at least implicitly, to justify their putschist ambitions," he said.

"The entire government, including Congress and the judiciary, is the protector of the people, not just a few armed men who think they’re saviors,"

De Venecia said the controversial provision should be amended to read: "Civilian authority is at all times supreme over the military."

In other countries where there is a similar provision, the military has also been using the Constitution to justify a coup, he added.

De Venecia hailed the Senate’s decision to start plenary debates next week on the resolutions from the two chambers calling for Charter amendments.

"Charter reform — the mother of all reforms — must be used to help put an end to military rebellion and adventurism," he said.

The call of De Venecia and other leaders of the House of Representatives was also expressed in a two-page letter to the Coalition for Charter Change NOW!, a group of more than 1,000 non-government organizations and leagues of provinces, municipalities and cities.

Last week, the coalition presented to the House a copy of a revised constitution embodying amendments, principally the shift to a unicameral parliamentary government with a fixed transition to a federal system in less than seven years through a constituent assembly.

De Venecia had also sent a similar letter to a group of 50 eminent lawyers and constitutional experts led by former Philippine Constitution president Camilo Sabio, which is drawing up draft amendments to the Constitution.

Meanwhile, De Venecia and other House leaders called for the immediate implementation of the E-Procurement Act to cover procurement in the Armed Forces, and drawing up of a housing program for soldiers and policemen in Metro Manila and in military camps nationwide. – Paolo Romero