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PUBLISHED: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 17 December 2006 Issue

After the defeat of the people’s initiative in the hands of the magistrates of the Supreme Court, the gung-ho minions of Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. at the House of Representatives practically took advantage of their number in the majority coalition to push for the amendment or revision of the Constitution through a confutative constituent assembly.

From the theoretical standpoint, the move seems justified from the context of a democratic framework. Firstly, congressmen are supposedly the direct representative and the voice of the people in state affairs and governance. Secondly, the principle of ‘majority rule’ has always been the decisive factor in determining the popular will in a democracy.

Representative Douglas Cagas of Davao del Sur captured this sense during the marathon con-ass sessions in reaction to the protestations of spectators when he said for the record: “The point is that we’re lawmakers, and you’re not.” x x x x “Mr. Speaker, before we vote, there will always be differing opinions… That is accorded in a democracy [but] let us exercise our numbers. After all, these debates have been done before,”

But just like a breeze of fresh air these concepts of representation and the rule of majority may be rendered impure by personal and vested interests of the elected representatives.

An elected represented may conveniently disregard the will of his constituency and substitute it with his own and still invoke that his stand on public issues is the voice of the people. What is worse is when the stand is hidden as always under the cloak of promoting the national interest.

The majority of the representatives may patiently allow the voices of dissent to be heard but would never care to listen at all at the end of the day knowing fully well that the die is cast anyway. What is worse is when established rules and precedents are twisted to accomplish the objective and still invoke constitutional adherence and the rule of law.

Christian Monsod, one of the framers of the present Constitution, said that it is precisely for the reason that the 1986 Constitutional Commission adopted the principle that “(T)he Philippines is a democratic and republican state.” The insertion of the word ‘democratic’ is to put emphasis on the active and direct role of the people in the life of the nation.

To boost its arguments for a judicial consideration of the people’s initiative, Sigaw ng Bayan argued along the same line that the Supreme Court should not disregard the signatures of more than six million Filipinos desiring charter change. But where is the popular clamor of those who supposedly signed the petition for people’s initiative now that all moves to change the constitution are dead? 

Even before the people could gather today in a prayer rally in Luneta organized by religious groups and civil society, the majority coalition of Speaker Jose de Venecia in the House of Representatives and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had already declared the death of their constitutional initiatives at this time. It could be an effort to thwart the political storm of a people power or to show sensitivity to the popular will or both.  Whatever is the reason is moot.

As the Filipino people gather today in prayer to defend constitutional democracy in this country, the following exhortation from Thomas Jefferson, former US President and principal author of his nation’s Declaration of Independence, sometime in 1810 may be in point:

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self- preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”

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