A constitution to die for

Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., a true-blooded Cebuano, has vowed to stake his life on defending the 1987 Constitution, which he helped frame.

Davide joined other framers of the 1987 Constitution to fight moves by President Rody Duterte and his allies in Congress to overhaul the charter in their push for a shift to a federal system of government.

People across history were known to have died for their country. Finally, here is a constitution to die for.

“If I have to sign the Constitution again, I will repeat what I have said: This is the constitution I’m willing to die for,” Davide said.

And we should all know why. He said, “This is the only constitution in the world, I say the whole world, that is pro-God, pro-country, pro-people, pro-poor, pro-life, pro-family, pro-marriage, pro-environment… This is the best constitution.”

Let’s hope no one would die for this Constitution, more so, former Chief Justice Davide.

Davide said a shift from a unitary to a federal system of government would be a “fatal experiment” that would further push the country to poverty.

He instead urged the national government to fully implement the 1987 Constitution rather than proposing for a change of government.

To paraphrase The Bard, perhaps the fault is not in our constitution, but in ourselves that we elected these politicians into office.

The former chief justice said only less than 30 percent of the provisions of the 1987 Constitution have been implemented 30 years since it was crafted.

“We have to give the Constitution a longer life, until the objectives, the aspirations and the ideals of the Filipino people embodied there shall be implemented,” Davide said.

But as the lyrics in Nobel Literature laureate Bob Dylan’s song says, “The times they are a’changing.” And alas, our constitution is not written in stone.