A Constitution Must Be, A Living Force

No sooner had President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made a yahoo declaration of elation on the peso’s recovering strength vis-à-vis the US dollar and the national broadsheets’ observation of investors coming when a few congressmen hurriedly considered contemplating amendments to the 1987 Constitution through a constituent assembly centered on a change of form of government, as if it is an idea and national necessity whose time has come.
The methods of amending or revising the 1987 Constitution is provided in Sections 1 and 2, Art. XVII of the said Constitution. Jose N. Nolledo, in his work The Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines Explained, makes these explanations, thus: “The Constitution may be amended or revised – (1) By the Congress by a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; (2) By a constitutional convention, either called by two-thirds vote of all the Members of the Congress, approved by the electorate (in a referendum) as when (in the latter case) the question of calling such convention is submitted to the electorate by a majority vote of all the Members of the Congress; or (3) By the people through a system of initiative under the conditions set forth in Section 2 of the instant Article. In any of the ways mentioned above, the revision or amendments must be submitted to the people for ratification and the same shall be valid only when ratified by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite. (Sec. 4, Art. XVII).”
As a matter of recollection, a May 2002 national political summit was conducted and studied. It felt an urgent need for constitutional reforms. The compelling need for constitutional reforms had been based on the fact that our country has not moved ahead in economic, political, social and governmental development as a consequence of continuous political instability, rampant graft and corruption, huge foreign debt, kidnappings, prolonged military skirmishes in Mindanao and Sulu and the seeming lack of proper direction in economic development. In addition, the U.P. Law Center and the Philippine Constitution Association (PHILCONSA) found more than 100 errors and inadequacies in the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
On that year, the House of Representatives of the Philippines conducted a series of nation-wide public hearings and opinion surveys in selected cities on the issues whether the people are in favor of amending the 1987 Philippine Constitution and their recommendation on the procedure of amending the fundamental law. Thereafter, there was the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives call for a Constitutional Convention for urgent constitutional reforms.
Advocate of constitutional amendment through the constituent assembly should remember the admonition of Rep. Herminio Teves, the oldest member of the House of Representatives of amending the 1987 Constitution through a constituent assembly. He recalled the failed constituent assembly in May 1957, April 1966 and in June 1969.
Be the foregoing as it may, in a democracy such as ours, one should consider the vital import of a constitution, or if you will, its sacredness which should not be trifled with.
Some Filipinos have the mistaken notion that we imported our constitutional tradition. A lot of our nationalists believe so. Somewhere in 1970, profused with the thought that a constitutional convention was about to be called preceded by the election of delegates to the constitutional convention, I scribbled some notes on the studies of some authors on constitutionalism. One of the authorities that I studied was Jorge M. Juco. Juco, in his work The Citizen and the Constitution writes thus: “We did not import our constitutional tradition. Men speak of transplantation of systems. But the Filipinos did not need to import his constitutionalism. Filipinos demanded the limitation of government representation, not because of encroachments of foreign powers, but because they saw in the mirror of their national history how political life could not prosper without them. What was imported, at times, were not the thoughts or the aspirations, but their verbal presentation. It is an act of political masochism to say that we do not have a constitutional tradition. We do have one. We have imported constitutional processes, it is true, but the operations of these processes in practice are peculiarly ours. In this lies the national dilemma, for we are ourselves a different kind of people and theory and practice vary not because constitutions vary, but because the people who must live them are different in temperament, discipline and in attitude.”
Juco sites that what is demanded of the citizenry in the remaking of the Constitution is awareness, knowledge and discussion. “The Filipino must inform himself (and others) about what the constitution that he is to change already contains. In order that he may better know what changes he is to institute in the fundamental law, he must know what options confront him, and the consequences of his choice. It, too, demands discussion – this is the keystone of democracy; matter must be discussed openly and open-mindedly. Beyond this, the remaking of our constitution demands reasons. Popular passions and prejudices, while they may sway a mob and inspire demonstrations, cannot constitute a stable basis for democratic government. Constitution of countries are not judged by their appeal to the vices of a people, but to their virtues, and to the capacity of the people to look beyond present needs towards the aspiration of the future.”