It is not a question of compassion, accommodation or even health condition but a matter of the constitutional right to travel which former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo must exercise without any impediment or restraint.
The right to travel is enshrined in the Bill of Rights which unequivocally provides: “Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.”
Former President Arroyo’s travel does not involve national security, public safety, or public health which are the only constitutional limitations to a citizen’s right to travel which shall be provided by law.
Until now the Congress has not enacted the requisite law pursuant to the mandate of the Constitution.
I have filed House Bill No. 5111, entitled “An Act Upholding the Constitutional Right to Travel and Granting to the Proper Court the Exclusive Jurisdiction to Issue Hold Departure Orders” to precisely comply with the prescription of the Constitution for Congress to enact a law protecting the right to travel and imposing the aforementioned three (3) constitutional limitations.
Pending the passage of the necessary statute, mere executive issuances will not suffice as compliance with the Constitution and the right to travel cannot be restricted by executive fiat.
Inclusion of a person’s name in the watch order list of the Department of Justice is not equivalent to a hold departure order which only the proper court can issue.
Moreover, there is no criminal information filed in any court or tribunal against former President Arroyo to justify the delay or denial of her right to fully exercise her freedom to travel.
It is imperative that President Aquino convene soonest the National Security Council (NSC) to rationally and effectively address the escalating carnage being repeatedly committed by MILF rebels against government soldiers and civilians.
President Corazon C. Aquino on 24 December 1986 issued Executive Order No. 115 reorganizing the NSC “purposely to formulate and adopt policies, programs and procedures on all matters pertaining to or affecting the national security so that judgements and actions thereon by the President may rest on sound advice and accurate information.”
The President must not rely on the bungling assessment of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and the amateurish pronouncements of Presidential spokepersons.
The NSC is composed of the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Executive Secretary, the Secretary of National Defense, the Secretary of Justice, the Secretary of Labor and Employment, the Secretary of Local Government, the National Security Adviser, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and such other government officials and private citizens as the President may designate from time to time.
The NSC shall be the “lead agency of the government for coordinating the formulation of policies relating to or with implications on the national security.”
The NSC is also tasked “to evaluate and analyze all information, events, and incidents in terms of the risks they pose or implications upon and/or threats to the overall security and stability of the nation, for the purpose of recommending to the President appropriate responses thereto and/or action thereon.”
After 16 months in office the President has not yet convened the NSC despite the occurrences of serious events threatening or involving the national security.
Minority Leader and Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman proposed the inclusion in the University of the Philippines’ 2012 budget a P5-million financial outlay for the Philippine Collegian, the UP students’ campus newspaper.
The Philippine Collegian, which is celebrating its 89th year of progressive and indomitable alternative journalism, is facing a serious financial crisis which may impair its regular publication and the number of pages of the weekly campus organ.
For about 20 years the measly student fee of P40 per semester has not been increased while the cost of publication has inordinately escalated.
In recent years the total collection is short by P1-M annually to cover printing and allied expenses.
Lagman, who is the president of the Philippine Collegian Alumni Editors Association, urged his colleagues, particularly Collegian alumni in the House and Senate, to support the financial assistance to the Philippine Collegian.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile must be jesting when he said that I anchored my arguments on the unconstitutionality of a “legislative constituent assembly” on the 1935 Constitution.
Certainly, I was looking at the 1987 Constitution, and not at the 76-year old Charter.
It is Enrile who is looking at the 1935 Constitution when he agreed to the proposal for a separate voting of the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives despite the obvious absence of this provision in the 1987 Constitution.
It should be Enrile who should reread the 1987 provisions and comprehend the grant of power to propose constitutional amendments to the Congress as a constituent assembly in the light of the leading and prevailing case of Gonzales vs. COMELEC wherein the Supreme Court categorically distinguished legislative authority from constituent power.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that “Indeed, the power to amend the constitution or to propose amendments thereto is not included in the general grant of legislative powers to Congress x x x hence, when exercising the same, it is said that Senators and Members of the House of Representative act, not as Members of Congress, but as component elements of a constituent assembly.”
Section I(1), Article XVIII, of the 1987 Constitution clearly provides that “Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by: (1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; x x x”
This empowers Representatives and Senators to jointly convene in a constituent assembly to consider and propose charter change, not as legislators representing their respective Chambers but as “component elements of a constituent assembly” in the precise language of the Supreme Court.
Moreover, the 1987 Constitution requires “a vote of three-fourths of all the Members.” The clear import of this provision consists of: (1) the convening of a joint assembly or session wherein the requisite vote of all members could be determined; and (2) no “separate voting” of the House of Representatives and the Senate is authorized because there is no Chamber or institutional representation in the constituent assembly.
The infirm variation of the constituent assembly endorsed by Enrile does not only propose using the legislative format as basis of the proceedings but authorizes separate voting of each House, both of which do not find anchorage in the 1987 Constitution.
If there is any relevance of the 1935 Constitution to the current debate, it is on the fact that (1) it confirmed that in a constitutional assembly, the Congress must convene in joint session; and (2) in contrast, it called specifically for a separate voting of the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, while the 1987 Constitution does not.
Representatives and Senators must not be precipitate in adopting a variation of the constituent assembly to propose amendments to the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution which innovation may be a mongrel bereft of pedigree under the fundamental law.
The constitutionality of the proposed variation must be assured even as the necessity of the proposed amendments needs to be ascertained in the absence of a justifiable clamor from foreign investors to liberalize the nationalistic economic provisions which protect Filipino citizens and safeguard the national patrimony.
A constituent assembly, which is one of the only three modes of proposing charter change, by tradition and experience, has its own nature, processes and objectives which are vastly different from the legislative functions of the Congress.
The other two modes are by constitutional convention and people’s initiative. Amendments by legislation are not authorized.
The congressional procedure of enacting a law, wherein a bill is initiated and approved separately by each Chamber and differing provisions are harmonized in a bicameral conference committee, cannot be made to apply to a constituent assembly.
After the convening of a constituent assembly has been called through a concurrent resolution by the Congress, Representatives and Senators constituting the constituent assembly have to meet in a joint session to consider and propose constitutional change.
The Supreme Court as early as 09 November 1967 in Gonzales vs. COMELEC (21 SCRA 774) made an unequivocal distinction between the legislative authority exercised by the Congress and the constituent power discharged by a constituent assembly.
The High Court ruled that:
“Indeed, the power to amend the constitution or to propose amendments thereto is not included in the general grant of legislative powers to Congress x x x hence, when exercising the same, it is said that Senators and Members of the House of Representative act, not as Members of Congress, but as component elements of a constituent assembly.”
This doctrine in Gonzales vs. COMELEC was reiterated in Tolentino vs. COMELEC (41 SCRA 702) and in the separate opinion of Justice Puno in the case of Integrated Bar of the Philippines vs. Zamora (338 SCRA 81).
Verily, the proposal to use the legislative process as the format of the constituent assembly is infirm.
The issue on the constitutionality of the mode or process of proposing amendments to the Constitution has been held in Gonzales, Tolentino and Zamora as justiciable and not a political question.
With respect to the voting procedure in the constituent assembly, Section 1 (1) of Article XVIII is indubitable and clear when it provides for “a vote of three-fourths of all” the Members of the Congress constituting the constituent assembly.
Oversight on the part of the Constitutional Commission of 1986 cannot be presumed when it did not change the manner of voting to “voting separately” by each House when the proposal for a unicameral legislature lost and a bicameral Congress was instead installed.
What should be presumed is that the Constitutional Commission had good reasons for not changing the voting procedure consistent with the decision in Gonzales vs. COMELEC which ruled that “Senators and Members of the House of Representatives act, not as Members of Congress but as component elements of a constituent assembly,” thus obviating the need for separate voting since Senators and Representatives do not represent their respective Chambers in the constituent assembly because there is no institutional or chamber representation in the constituent assembly.
The unequivocal phraseology and intent of the framers of the Constitution requiring a vote of three-fourths of all the Members of Congress voting as a whole as component members of the constitutional assembly cannot be altered except by a constitutional amendment.
This provision is not subject to Congressional variation or innovation. What the Constitution clearly provides, no one must be allowed to alter.
