MANILA, Philippines — Juan Ponce Enrile — who implemented Martial Law in the 1970s and is currently chief presidential legal counsel — on Wednesday called for the lifting of a safeguard in the Constitution meant to prevent a repeat of rights abuses during the long presidency of Ferdinand Marcos.
Enrile heavily criticized the 1987 Constitution during a Senate panel hearing on charter change, saying that the present constitution “weakened” the powers of the Republic.
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In particular, the 98-year-old politician vented his frustration over the deletion of the phrase “imminent danger thereof” in the provision on martial law in the 1987 Constitution.
The phrase was present in the provision on the declaration in the 1935 and 1973 constitutions.
“Ginulo nila ‘yung martial law provision. (They messed with the martial law provision,)” Enrile said, as he pounced on the constitutionthat was drafted during the presidency of Cory Aquino, who was installed after the elder Marcos' ouster from Malacañang in the People Power Revolution.
“Ibig sabihin ni Cory, kung nandiyan na iyong giyera at binabaril na yung sundalo at pulis natin, saka lang ako magdeklara ng martial law,” Enrile said.
(What Cory meant was that if war is here and your soldiers and policemen are being shot at, that’s the only time you’ll declare martial law.)
He continued: “Kapag nakita mo na … ang bansa mo ay namemeligro na sasalakayin o wawasakin ng insurekto o ng rebelyon, gumalaw ka na. Gamitin mo ang kamay na bakal para sa ganoon masugpo ang problema na iyan at walang tao ang masasalanta o mamatay dahil … takot ka mag-desisyon.”
(If you see that your country is in danger of invasion or of being destroyed by insurrection or rebellion, you should move. Use your iron fist so that you can quash this problem and no person would die because you are afraid to make a decision.)
That "kamay na bakal" led to more than 11,000 cases of abuse acknowledged by a government reparations board.
Learning from abuses
Framers of the 1987 Constitution limited the grounds for the declaration of martial law to only include “invasion or rebellion, when the public safety requires it.”
The 1987 Constitution also imposed other safeguards against abuses, including limiting the time of the effectivity of a martial law declaration to just 60 days unless extended by Congress and allowing the legislature and the Supreme Court to review the declaration.
The Marcos dictatorship saw thousands imprisoned, tortured, killed, and disappeared — a fact that was recognized by the Hawaii court and affirmed by the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 and the Philippine Supreme Court in 2003.
Republic Act 10368 or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act also recognizes that there “were victims of summary execution, torture, enforced or involuntary disappearance and other gross human rights violations” under the Marcos regime.
That law formed a board that would evaluate claims of human rights violations during the Marcos regime. Although passed during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III, the work of the Human Rights Victims' Claims Board (HRVCB) and the payment of reparations extended into the Duterte administration.
The Supreme Court has already ruled three times that the Marcos family committed fraud on a massive scale from 1965 and 1986. The High Court has also ordered them to repay the millions of dollars stolen from government coffers. — with a report from Franco Luna