Thailand experience won’t happen in RP, says ad-com

The military takeover of the Thailand government and its plan to amend the Thai constitution are an "exceptionally unlikely" scenario to happen in the Philippines, a commissioner of the Charter Change Advocacy Commission (ad-com) said yesterday.

According to former ad-com commissioner Rita Linda Jimeno, Thailand has had a long history of military coups dominating its government for more than 65 years.

Jimeno said that based on historical accounts, Thailand’s military so dominated its government that there have been 20 coups and 16 changes in its constitution which were mostly drafted by the military.

After having successfully taken over Parliament and key government offices last Sept. 20, Thai military coup leaders have expressed their intent to amend their nine-year-old constitution.

Jimeno said the constitutions of Thailand were dominantly drafted by military men as compared to the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines which was crafted by civilians representing various sectors of society.

"The Thai constitution is slanted to the benefit of military institutions and not for the people," Jimeno pointed out.

"In the Philippines, it’s the people who have the stake in the Constitution and this is very much evident in form and essence. Since the Malolos Constitution up to the 1987 Constitution, these charters were all drafted by civilian authorities elected by the people and not the military," she said.

Jimeno said Filipinos are strongly against the military "dipping its hands" in civilian affairs, such as crafting the basic law of the land.

She said one of the proposals of the Consultative Commission is to delete a provision in the 1987 Constitution that "the Armed Forces of the Philippines is the protector of the people and the State."

Jimeno said that particular provision of Article 2, Section 3 of the 1987 Constitution, had caused ambiguous interpretations and led to an adventuresome military.

"We would like this removed because the military is the protector of the Philippine republic from external and internal threats but civilian authority should rule as stated in the Constitution and not the military," she said.

Jimeno said the particular provision is being used by putschists to justify military intervention and stage coups.

"They usually invoke the provision as a rationale to mean that they are supreme when in fact they are not," Jimeno said.