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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Malilong: Obeying, honoring the Constitution
By Frank Malilong
The Other Side
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago couldn’t have stated it more clearly and appropriately when she said that, “in times of national crisis, the Constitution should be the solution, not part of the problem.”
In school, we were taught about the primacy of the constitution; that all acts must conform to it otherwise they shall be invalid; and that all persons must defer to it, no matter how high their office.
“Expediency must not be allowed to sap its strength nor greed for power debase its rectitude,” wrote Justice Isagani A. Cruz, whose books are must reading for students of political law. “Right or wrong, the Constitution must be upheld as long as it has not been changed by the sovereign people lest its disregard result in the usurpation of the majesty of law by the pretenders to illegitimate power.”
Cruz wrote these lines in 1987. Who would have thought that the evils he had warned against would rear their ugly head a little less than two decades later. A mixed bag of traditional, discredited, marginalized and fringe political players have taken advantage of the people’s disgust over a presidential indiscretion to attempt a shameless power grab. Had they succeeded, the first casualty would have been the Constitution, particularly its provision on the mode of succession to the presidency.
But the Constitution does not appear to be safe from the other side, too. The President’s men are talking about constituting a constitutional assembly to amend the charter, prompting Santiago to make the above remark.
No statute, not even the supreme law, is impervious to change but if the Constitution has to be amended, it has to be for reasons other than “political expediency, personal ambitions or ill-advised agitation for change”, to borrow the language of Justice Cruz again.
If we are amending the Constitution merely as a response to the current political crisis, then we are not solving anything. The present Constitution contains not only the safeguards to prevent such a crisis from arising but also the mechanism for resolving it, if despite such safeguards, it still happens.
The problem was not with the Constitution but with the people. Had President Arroyo respected the independence of the constitutional body that is the Commission on Elections, she would not have committed her “lapse of judgment.”
Had Francisco Tatad, Samuel Ong and the others respected the right to privacy enshrined in our Bill of Rights, there wouldn’t have been a “Hello Garci” tape to begin with.
And if we had only adhered to the processes laid down by the Constitution in punishing the President for her indiscretion, we wouldn’t have been thrown into this turmoil.
Before we even think of amending the Constitution, we should learn to honor and obey it first.
(fmmalilong@gothong.com)
(July 13, 2005 issue)
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