The justices should let the people decide

A colleague of mine in the Adcom who is a respected dean of law once said, perhaps in an unguarded moment he was against the people’s initiative because the rule of the majority cannot always be trusted. Let us not have elections at all then. As Thomas Jefferson said, "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it away from them, but to inform their discretion.

But there is just too much at stake for the country a solution must be found to come to an agreement on the disagreement. It was different in 1997 when the Davide court used a legal judgment against the People’s Initiative then for a political reason. That political reason was to ensure an Estrada victory which was an unmitigated disaster. Any attempt by the Panganiban court to do the same will invite even worse consequences. The People’s Initiative today has grown too big. It cannot be returned to the bottle. As I have said many times in this column the petition carries the political power of local authorities and their millions of constituencies.

The overarching challenge to the Supreme Court justices is to let the people decide. How will this be done? It is being said that some of the justices are echoing the opposition casting doubt on the 6 million signatories. But if that is the concern then the Supreme Court should send it back to the Comelec because that is the job of the electoral body, not the court’s. The justices should revisit the 1997 ruling which handcuffed the Comelec with a TRO. Once the 1997 ruling is revisited and it is confirmed that there is indeed an enabling law the justices cannot do otherwise but order the Comelec to act on it. The electoral body is tasked by the Constitution to conduct a plebiscite on the proposed amendments.

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Tyranny of grammatical lapses. First it was for a lack of a subheading which made R.A. 6735 inadequate and therefore cannot be an enabling law despite the testimony of the author and Congressional records . Basta, we don’t like the grammar the Davide court justices said. Now another grammatical lapse threatens to outlaw more than 6 million of our citizens. This time it is about some imagined difference between amendment and revision by so-called ‘constitutionalists.’

Dean Danilo Fariñas of the University of Baguio and dean Hermogenes Decano of the University of Pangasinan argued that even law practitioners define "amend" and "revise" as simply to "change." "So is it with ordinary people. Whoever made the strict technical distinction between an "amendment" and a "revision" with respect to the nature and extent of the changes, I am afraid, was making his own grammar.

That makes the opponents of Charter reform arguments against the people’s initiative because it only allows "amendments" and not a "revision" silly. I would urge to look at the dictionary although we can also refer to the US Constitution which makes no mention of the word revision as distinct from amendment. Indeed the Supreme Court already ruled in several cases that any technical difference between "amendment" and "revision" would become immaterial once Filipinos voted to ratify the proposed constitutional changes in a national referendum, Farinas added.

It would be a disgraceful footnote in our history if a grammatical lapse once again denied a people’s initiative. In other countries where there is a better appreciation of what language is for and English is better understood, no distinction is made between revision and amendment. What is differentiated is total revision or partial revision. If there can be partial or total revision of the Constitution there can also be partial and total amendment but not between revision or amendment as invented by an enterprising grammarian/constitutionalist.

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More than a nuke crisis. To many students of the United Nations, the North Korea nuke crisis presents an opportunity to strengthen the United Nations as the world’s referee. While the permanent members of the Security Council wrestle with a US draft resolution condemning North Korea, Russia and China objected to some parts. The two countries objected to "international inspections of cargo going into and out of North Korea, to block the transport of weapons-related material, and cites the need for drafting the resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which makes sanctions mandatory and posits the use of military force.

The crisis has forced a new perspective on Iran who has continued to campaign for world approval for a nuclear program for peaceful purposes. An Iranian government spokesman said that the nuclear test by North Korea has its roots in the behavior of the US and other powers which possess nuclear arsenals. They dominate the UN Security Council and use the Council to achieve their goals and interests. "The world will enjoy true peace and security in case the big powers, the US in particular, are disarmed. Hence, worldwide nuclear disarmament is the solution to the establishment of global peace and security and this must first start with those world powers who own such weapons," Gholam Hosein Elham said . President Dwight Eisenhower offered the best justification for the world body when he said: With all the defects with all the failures that we can check up against it, the UN still represents man’s best organized hope to substitute the conference table for the battlefield.

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Megaworld: Olympic Heights residents in Eastwood City are up in arms against the developer of their condominium. Apparently Megaworld has not lived up to its promises at the same time that it has announced it will expand Eastwood City. What? They ask, Where is our day care center? Where is our library? Where are our parking lots? Megaworld and subsidiaries posted first-quarter earnings of P605.24 million, up 40.51 percent from P430.73 million in the same period last year on strong property sales, and increased leasing and hotel operation.

The unit holders are also asking for their titles which I hear continues to be in the hands of Megaworld because it wants to continue management of the building instead of giving it to the association of residents. Instead it has a Megaworld controlled Boards composed mainly of officers of Megaworld Daewoo Corp. 1991. I hear that this board has been derelict even on such simple matter as repairs to the building and elevators in disrepair.

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