‘Why we need to change the 1987 Constitution’ — CJ Puno

(Part 2)

To quote Helen Graham in her short introduction to The Spanish Civil War: â€œThe past is another country. But doing history is, by definition, an unending dialogue between the present and the past.” That is true of Spain as it is also of the Philippines.

So to continue with former CJ Puno’s speech:

“President Mckinley formed the First Philippine Commission to study how a civil government would be established in our war-ravaged country…

In 1934, the Philippine Independence Law or the Tydings-McDuffie Law was enacted. It guaranteed independence to the Philippines and authorized the drafting of a new Constitution for the Philippines…

The delegates to the 1935 Constitutional Convention were elected and they chose the eminent Claro M. Recto to be its President. …

Notably, it contained an Ordinance which granted US citizens equal rights as the Filipinos in the disposition, exploitation, development and utilization of our natural resources. This economic imposition lasted until July 3, 1974….

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In the 1970s, our constitutional journey took an undemocratic detour. Then, President Ferdinand Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus and shortly thereafter proclaimed Martial Law, ostensibly to quell a communist rebellion and restore peace and order in the country. President Marcos used his extraordinary commander-in-chief powers even while a Constitutional Convention under the leadership of former President Diosdado Macapagal was in progress revising our 1935 Constitution…

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In 1986, the regime of President Marcos came to an end…The revolution catapulted Corazon C. Aquino to the Presidency. During a short transition, she governed by means of decrees under a Freedom Constitution. She, however, immediately appointed commissioners to draft a new Constitution in lieu of our 1973 Constitution…

Given the age of the 1987 Constitution, the geopolitical changes going within and without the country, the question is whether there is now a need to reconfigure the Constitution to make it more responsive to the interest of our people. To be sure, the world has radically changed since 1987.

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 â€œWe have witnessed thru the years, the overt attempts at coup d’ etat by the military, its undemocratic role in regime changes, its unconstitutional coddling by leaders of government; we also saw the sickening deadlocks between the Executive and the Legislative especially in instances when the latter exercised its power to investigate in aid of legislation to crush corruption in government; we saw the raw use or misuse of the political power of impeachment by Congress; we saw the overarching exercise of the power of judicial review even on arguable political issues; we saw, the proliferation of political dynasties despite their prohibition; we saw the tightening of the stranglehold by monopolies and oligopolies; we saw the continuing marginalization of the masses by the elite that believe there is constitutional right to be selfish. In short, our declining democracy is not giving the people a responsive and responsible government. “

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 â€˜â€The big question is …… how do we get out of the belly of the whale?

First. Our representative system of government leaves much to be desired because more than 100 years after exercising our right to suffrage, our elections are still not free, fair and honest. This is a proposition that proves itself. It is futile to be blind to the fact that our elections are too expensive; they are often won by force or fraud; they are not issue oriented and they are more popularity contests where an unenlightened electorate usually trumps the enlightened. The result is a Congress, which is the domain of the elites and dynasties, where our Muslim and indigenous brothers are underrepresented. ….

Second. Our democracy is not only tainted by political inequality but also by a worsening social and economic inequality. A pestering social and economic inequality is anti-democratic and anti-republicanism. For they breed people who lack the capacity to exercise effectively their civil and political rights. …

Third. The Presidential system of government has resulted in gridlock especially when the leaderships of the Executive and legislative departments belong to different political parties. …Again, there is need to amend the Constitution to delineate more clearly the demarcation line between executive privilege and the power of the Congress to investigate in aid of legislation and avoid abuse in the use of the executive privilege and equally avoid the misuse the power to investigate….

Fourth. We have a Judiciary that is not completely shielded from partisan politics. No ifs and buts about it, our Judiciary lacks financial independence. A judiciary with a bent back and a begging bowl is anathema to real democracy for it will have no backbone to check the excesses of the other branches of government…

Fifth. There is need to strengthen the Judiciary by further depoliticizing appointments to the bench.

Sixth. There is need to relieve the High Court of its clogged docket and prevent its packing by the appointing authority. Justice to be of real value to democracy must not only be fair but must be fast for if democracy is boring to the people it is because of justice that travels in the slow lane. …The possibility of an incumbent President appointing all the members of the High Court during his or her incumbency has come to pass. One way to declog its docket is to amend the Constitution to delimit the High Court jurisdiction only to significant cases…

Seventh. When representative democracy is not fully functioning, as in our case today, then the means by which the people themselves can exercise direct democracy should be improved… Thus, for the first time, under the 1987 Constitution, the people gave themselves the direct power to propose amendments to the Constitution thru the process of initiative…”

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“We elect our leaders and it is our duty to provide them a constitutional framework of government where it will be difficult for them to fail the people. I reject the argument that there is no urgency in amending the Constitution to arrest the decline of our democracy. We do not need a democracy in a stretcher. We cannot wait for our democracy to be in the ICU before calling the doctors.

I started by saying, I am only peddling proposals of change in the hope of provoking debates. If I have done anything correct this afternoon, it is to choose the University of the Philippines as the marketplace of discussion of these proposals. It is one venue where the irrelevant is not treated as irreverent, where there is no idea that is considered as inciting to sedition, where we are taught to doubt and to doubt, doubt itself.”