Absurdity

Undeniably, it is time for us to change our Constitution. By just looking back at how all our Constitutions have been crafted and assembled, there is no room to doubt that charter change is really necessary. Easily noticeable at first glance is that none of them were enacted during the best of times and under most ideal circumstances. Hence none of them, past or present are without imperfections.

The most ideal climate for framing a Constitution of the sovereign people came after the 1986 Edsa revolution. But the reluctance of then newly installed President to run the affairs of the State under a revolutionary situation and rule by Executive Orders, propelled the hasty formation of a body known as the Constitutional Commission (Con Com) composed of appointed members instead of elected delegates. True enough, in four and a half months, the Con Com completed its task and came up with the present charter. With due respect to the Con Com members, most of whom were really brilliant and capable, the rush to complete that charter resulted in a document where "inconsistencies crept in and oversights begot problems for constitutional interpretation", as one of the Commissioners himself, the foremost Constitutionalist, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. ruefully admitted.

Ironically among the imperfections in this 1987 Constitution needing interpretation is being exploited by the rabid advocates of charter change in another frenzied rush to revise the entire document and ram their proposal to change the system of government from Presidential to Parliamentary and from Unitary to Federal. Led by no less than Speaker De Venecia and Ronaldo Puno, the head of the party founded by the President and newly appointed DILG Secretary, they are foisting on the hapless citizens who know no better, their own warped interpretation of Article XVII Section 1 which provides that "Any amendment to, or revision of this Constitution may be proposed by the Congress upon a vote of three fourths of all its members." According to them, this provision does not say that the two chambers should vote separately or jointly. All it says is that a three fourths vote of all the members of Congress is sufficient to propose amendments. Hence they contend that "195 signatures even if they all belong to the House members are enough to approve the proposed charter changes", leaving no room for another interpretation because "that is the language of the law and that is our interpretation".

In so interpreting, they conveniently overlooked the basic rule in statutory construction that a document should be read in its entirety and that each and every provision should be reconciled to avoid incongruity and contradiction. If they use simple common sense, they will easily see that their interpretation covers a situation where Congress consists only of a unicameral body. Con Com records show that when the 1987 Constitution was being drafted, there was a strong move to shift to a unicameral Congress so Article XVII Section 1 was one of the provisions drafted presumable in anticipation of such Congress. But when unicameralism was defeated by a single vote, the framers inadvertently omitted to correct this provision by adding the phrase "voting separately" which is appropriate for a bicameral Congress. Indeed, in other parts of the Constitution, this phrase "voting separately" always appears whenever Congressional votes are required in the exercise of the legislative function by the two houses of Congress. Following the basic rule of statutory construction, the whole document should be read in such a way that the votes of all the members of Congress required for proposing amendments or revisions of the constitution refers to the votes of members of Senate and the House of Representatives voting separately. It would be illogical indeed to say that in matters of enacting ordinary laws, the houses of Congress vote separately whereas in the more important function of amending or revising the basic law of the land, separate action is not required. Furthermore, to say that the two houses should not vote separately would mean that the members of the lower house could always exclude the members of the upper chamber since by sheer force of numbers they could always muster the 3/4 votes. By their interpretation, this provision of the Constitution would in effect mean 3/4 votes of the members of the Lower House. This is not what the Constitution says. This is absurd. And laws abhor absurdities.

During this period of turmoil, our politicians are once more giving us a recipe for another Constitution haphazardly drawn and utterly flawed that has for its legal basis, their whims and caprices rather than the sovereign will of the people.

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