Section 6

IONLY have the deepest respect for the members of the Consultative Committee on Charter Change who are among the most respected names in law, governance, and the academe. I am certain that their combined knowledge, wisdom, and experience will help put rationality and sobriety in the heated national debate on revising our Constitution.

Knowing the work ethic and the strong sense of patriotism of the key committee members whom I have had the privilege to work with on many instances, I am certain that they will give their mission their undivided time and effort. It is my hope that the efforts of the committee, once completed and officially transmitted to Congress, will be given due regard.

However, the creation of the committee indicates that a Constituent Assembly would be the inevitable mode for revising the Constitution. Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno has been quoted as saying that the committee can serve as the Assembly’s panel of experts if and when the Assembly is convened. Charter Change in the hands of the incumbent members of Congress seems to be a fait accompli.

Yet even before the committee has started its work, some leaders of Congress have made rather provocative statements. While they recognize the existence of the committee, these legislators insist they are not obligated to adopt its output, which may take the form of specific amendments to the Constitution or a totally rewritten Constitution. This strikes me as a display of hubris. The President has, after all, taken the effort to handpick the members of the committee and to give them a clear mandate and direction. The least the members of Congress can do is to extend to the Committee, and in turn the President, the courtesy of reviewing and deliberating on the output of the committee with a degree of earnestness and sincerity.

When you have some members of Congress placing themselves on intellectual pedestals, tinkering with the Constitution with the end in view of short-time political and personal gains rather than the long-term national interest, then you have a formula for a political catastrophe that could affect future generations and the very stability of the nation. It is precisely for this reason that I am opposed to a Constituent Assembly as a mode of revising the Constitution.

For those who do not entertain doubts about the political motives of some members of Congress, allow me to cite a disturbing provision in the Proposed Constitution of the Federal Republic of the Philippines which is appended to Draft Resolution No 08 titled “Resolution of Both Houses Constituting the Senate and the House of Representatives, Seventeenth Congress, into a Constituent Assembly to Propose Revisions of the 1987 Constitution by Adopting a Federal Form of Government and for Other Purposes.”

We were able to obtain a copy of the resolution authored by Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr. and Rep. Eugene Michael de Vera, and in their prefatory statement, they declare with certainty and confidence that the “men and women comprising the members of the 17th Congress are very much capable of undertaking revisions of the 1987 Constitution.”

The authors make it a point to assure the public that the members of Congress will not be acting out of self-interest by limiting the scope of the proposed amendments. For emphasis, the authors claim that they took the initiative to specify and limit the areas of revisions “to the adoption of federalism as a form of government and certain economic provisions that shall propel the country to have enduring political stability and greater economic growth” in their “working draft” of the envisioned “Federal Constitution.”

The authors claim the members of Congress will not be tempted to include self-serving amendments because of “the very strong presence of mass and social media in the Philippines,” which are “strong deterrents against such selfinterests on the part of the members of Congress constituting the Constituent Assembly.”

This is far from reassuring, as we have seen how Congress and some legislators can be impervious to public opinion in pursuing their agenda.

The premises for revising the Constitution are, for the most part, agreeable and beyond debate. They are, after all, motherhood statements. And a cursory reading of their proposed amendments is enough to trigger interesting debate, if such will be allowed, in the halls of Congress and in media.

But a surprise – more like a sucker punch – lies in the Transitory Provisions, particularly Section 6 which I quote verbatim: “Upon the ratification of this Constitution, the present Congress shall be dissolved and the incumbent President shall exercise legislative powers until the first Federal Congress is convened.”

Now Section 1 of the Transitory Provisions sets the first election of the members of the envisioned Federal Congress and Regional Legislatures, Regional Governors, Regional Vice Governors and local elected officials under this Constitution “on the second Monday of May 2019.”

However, it is silent on the exact date of ratification of the draft Charter. It only specifies that the date for the plebiscite “…shall be held not earlier than 60 days nor later than 90 days after the approval of such revision.”

This means that from a still unspecified date of ratification in a plebiscite and the convening of the first Federal Congress presumably in July, 2019, the incumbent President, based on the provision of this draft Charter, will have the sole power to enact laws. He will be both chief executive and one-man legislature. This is constitutional dictatorship plain and simple and I find it mind-boggling and disappointing that members of Congress would even contemplate such a provision.

For those of us who fought against tyranny and one-man rule, such an audacious proposal would overturn the democracy and freedom we won at EDSA in February, 1986. It insults the legacy of countless Filipinos who made the supreme sacrifice during the long years of martial law so our people can live in freedom. For members of Congress to include an anti-democratic provision betrays a rejectionist view of the people’s valiant struggle to restore democracy. It exposes a dangerous predisposition to ideals that are contrary to democracy.

What surprises me is that this draft Constitution – and the highly explosive Section 6 of the Transitory Provisions – has not been discussed or talked about in Congress and even in media, considering that it was filed in August, 2016.

Section 6 puts the President on the spot. He has expressed on many occasions his desire to leave office once federalism is in place but Section 6 stands in contradiction to his public statement. If Congress recognizes and respects the declared intention of the President, and has even the slightest reverence for the ideals of democracy, it must cease to impose such a burden on him and the nation by disavowing Section 6.