Can the people clamor for change in the Constitution if they feel that it, in their time there are “inappropriate” “entries” here? The answer is YES! According to Article 17, sec 2 of the 1987 constitution:
“Amendments to this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least twelve per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which, every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered votes therein. No amendments under this section shall be authorized within five years following the ratification of this Constitution nor oftener than once every five years thereafter.
The congress shall provide for the implementation of the exercise of this right.”
According to this, amendments in the constitution can be done through signature campaign, which was already done by the Sigaw ng Bayan.
This afternoon, Supreme Court held an open forum or an open argument to whether or not they should pursue the proposal of the Sigaw ng Bayan about the change they want to happen in our society.
10 years ago, a landmark case, a similar event took place. PIRMA, a group similar to Sigaw ng Bayan through Sen. Denfensor Santiago filed a proposal on the Supreme Court to amend the constitution by invoking the use Article 17 sec 2 of the constitution. To cut the story short, the decision of the Supreme Court was NO!
Supreme Court said that the Article 17 sec 2 of the Constitution was inadequate or insufficient meaning this section of the Constitution needs an enabling law for it to be used. After this, the court told the Congress to pass an enabling law but unfortunately or fortunately the congress didn’t pass any law. Until now, there is no present enabling law to this Article 17 sec 2 of the Constitution. In addition to the decision and advice of the Supreme Court, the SC also issued a permanent injunction to this article of the Constitution and told COMELEC not to entertain any INITIATIVES that will be passed by any groups or what so ever.
Now going back to the present time, we can say that Sigaw ng Bayan’s clamor for change is invalid because of the previous decisions of the Supreme Court to a similar case.
For further discussion of the validity of the Sigaw ng Bayan, let us differentiate what is Revision and what is Amendment. Revision in Legal term, to make it simple, is a series of amendments that in turn can do an overhaul of the entire constitution, which can change the “system” itself while amendment is just an improvement of a section/s of the constitution without changing the entire system.
Remember the first word of Article 17; Sec 2 of the constitution is Amendments and not Revision. Now what does the Sigaw ng Bayan is proposing? They are proposing that we change our present system; from presidential to parliamentary and from bicameral to unicameral. This proposal in legal term is revision and according to Article 17 sec 1 of the constitution, only Congress can do revisions in the constitution.
In addition to what have been said earlier, the Supreme Court adopts the principle Stare Decisis that means that if a present case is similar to a past case, the judgment that must be done must also be similar. Now the question here is, will the decision be the same?
Now, here is the catch, read it carefully, (this is only a rumor, or opinion). In line with the decision making of the Supreme Court, remember that there are 15 member of SC and 13 of which are appointed by el presidente and 2 are already there even before the 2004 elections. Not only this, next year, reshuffling of the Supreme Court leader will take effect.
I don’t wanna say anything but I think after saying the catch, more or less you already know what will happen. I maybe wrong, I maybe right, will it be “in the bag” or not but who knows; only time will tell if the hints that I’ve written here will come true.
posted by JP @ 9:04 AM
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