If the petitioners from the Magnificent 7 would file a motion for reconsideration of the Supreme Court’s 10-5 decision upholding the yearlong martial law extension in Mindanao, the principal purpose is to document the flawed, erroneous and biased rationalizations of the majority of the justices.

This would place on judicial record and memorialize in Philippine history how the High Court’s majority crafted strained and strange justifications in kowtowing to the political departments’ importuning which derogated the Constitution and the people’s civil liberties.

The motion for reconsideration will elaborate on the following:

1. Dismal failure to determine and find lack of sufficient factual basis for the extension of martial law and the suspension of the of the writ of habeas corpus under the Supreme Court’s specific and special jurisdiction provided for in Section 18 of Article VII of the Constitution which does not require petitioners to prove arbitrariness or grave abuse of discretion on the part of the President and the Congress, unlike under Section 1 of Article VIII which expanded the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, which is not the pertinent constitutional provision.

2. Absence of actual rebellion in Mindanao.

3. Proclamation No. 216, which initially proclaimed martial law in Mindanao and suspended the writ, cannot anymore be extended because it is now functus officio with the decimation of the leadership and membership of the Maute-Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, which was the principal and sole target of the proclamation.

4. No less than President Rodrigo Duterte declared the liberation of Marawi from terrorist influence and National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana categorically announced that all military operations had been terminated way back in October 2017.

5. Any remnants of the terrorist groups are quixotic residues which cannot revive a vanquished rebellion or launch a new one.

6. Any extension must be for a limited period only proximate to and consistent with the initial declaration with a short duration not exceeding 60 days. The two extensions of Proclamation No. 216 total 526 days or 876.67% more than the original 60-day period, which extensions are inordinately and unconscionably long in defiance of the safeguard of limited durations.

7. Both the President and the Congress failed to show that an extension is needed because public safety requires it, which is a separate ground for declaration or extension of martial law aside from actual rebellion.

8. While it is true that the Constitution provides safeguards against the excesses and abuses of martial law, no less than the majority of the justices violated these safeguards on the mandatory grounds of the existence of actual rebellion and requirement of public safety, and the clear intent of the Constitution that any extension must only be for a limited period.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN