Drafting Constitution : Charting a New Path for Philippines

In an ultramodern building on the mountainous fringes of metropolitan Manila, Napoleon Rama, a lawyer and journalist, stood in prayerful attitude before his 47 colleagues on a recent morning and compared their task to that of Moses and even Jesus Christ.

Head bowed, hands clasped tightly together, Rama said, referring to the drafting of a new Philippine constitution: “There are those who scoff at what they believe is the exaggerated importance attached to this commission as a solver of the national problems. So horrible and entrenched are the evils in our system and society that it ought to be obvious it takes more than words and pious incantations of principles on a piece of paper, however elegantly strung together, to exorcise them.”

Many Years in Prison

Then Rama, who spent many years in the prisons of deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos, reflected aloud on how God created Adam in the Garden of Eden and how Jesus Christ reinterpreted the laws handed down by Moses and finally declared in the cavernous assembly hall:

“Let this new constitution we are now writing be the New Testament for the Filipino people.”

Rama, vice president of the commission appointed in May by President Corazon Aquino to draw up a new constitution for this nation, may have been overdramatizing his group’s task as he led his colleagues in prayer at the start of a daily session. But the fact remains that the 48 men and women, working overtime since they convened June 2 in the futuristic National Assembly building in suburban Quezon City, are charting the future course of the nation for many years to come.

Out of debates over such issues as whether life begins at conception or at birth, and whether two large American military bases will be allowed to remain in the country, the commission members are trying to create a blueprint for this nation of 55 million largely impoverished people.

Step Toward Stability

The exercise is critical for Aquino. She set aside the constitution drafted under the Marcos regime and has been governing under a provisional constitution that she proclaimed after taking power during a relatively bloodless four-day coup in February. Most political analysts say that an official, popularly endorsed national charter will be a major step toward stability for her government.

“It is all very reminiscent of 1787 in Philadelphia,” said Blas Ople, once a member of Marcos’ Cabinet and now on the constitutional panel. “Of course, we lack such majestic figures as Washington, Franklin, Madison and Jefferson.”

Here, the names include Delos Reyes, Suarez, Davide and Uka. Among their ranks are not only veteran lawyers and legislators, but also priests, journalists, schoolteachers, movie directors, leftist academics, a retired general and even a nurse and a nun.

Debates and rhetoric have ranged from populist to reactionary; the resolutions, from the absurd to the inspired, and the amendments--hundreds of them already--have, in the words of one member, “covered the philosophies of everyone from Che Guevara to Attila the Hun.”

But all staunchly maintain that their drafting task, the results of which are scheduled to be put before the public in a referendum in early December, is no less great than that of the Founding Fathers who drafted the American democratic system two centuries ago.

Working Against Deadline

This week alone was testimony to the speed with which the committee is trying to meet a three-month deadline recommended by Aquino when she created the panel.

In just five days, it decided the future shape of the nation’s legislative and executive branches. The commission:

--Set the term of presidency at six years, and limited presidents to one term.

--Mandated a 24-member Senate and a 250-member House of Representatives.

--Set the dates for future elections through the year 2000.

--Laid down the qualifications for candidates.

--Banned nepotism in government.

--Barred elected legislators from practicing law.

--And set standards for accountability in public office.

Commission members said their breakneck pace--most daily sessions have lasted 10 or 12 hours--will continue until they finish the job in the first week of September.

At Halfway Point

“We’re past the halfway point now, and the constitution that’s beginning to take shape is a good one--much stronger than its predecessors in terms of civil liberties, human rights, checks and balances and social justice,” said Commissioner Ople, who works on the charter even during recesses and after adjournment, using a personal computer that he installed next to the assembly hall.

The emerging constitution will be the Philippines’ fourth. The first, drafted in 1898 by soldiers rebelling against colonial Spain, was wiped out the same year, when the United States claimed the Philippines as a colonial possession.

The second constitution, drafted in 1935 under the watchful eye of American colonial authorities, remained the nation’s official charter even after the Philippines gained independence on July 4, 1946.

Marcos Constitution

In 1971, then-President Marcos, seeking to extend his own rule beyond the two terms permitted by the 1935 constitution, called a constitutional convention heavily stacked with men and women loyal to him, to rewrite the national charter to his wishes.

The so-called Marcos constitution was ratified in 1973 over the vehement objections of his opponents, but by then, the document had little value since Marcos had declared martial law the previous year.

Among the lawmakers who registered the loudest objections in 1973 was Commissioner Jose Suarez, who is now serving as a member of Aquino’s constitutional panel. The 62-year-old lawyer paid a price for his dissent. He was in and out of jail until the Marcos government fell and the deposed ruler fled to Hawaii after 20 years in power here.

When Aquino abolished both the 1973 constitution and the elected legislature that it created, Suarez and other appointed constitutional commissioners saw an opportunity for revenge.

‘Hangovers From Marcos’

“Many of us are still having hangovers from the Marcos regime, to the point that sometimes we overreact,” Suarez said in an interview. “Many of us, like me, came here with much hatred in their hearts toward Marcos and his hateful regime.

“But I think that’s waning now, and an aura of sobriety is beginning to prevail.”

Out of that lingering hatred, though, have come some of the most significant changes in the nation’s basic charter: a deliberate effort in Aquino’s constitutional commission to curb presidential powers and prevent the emergence of another dictatorship.

The panel not only limited the term of the president but also made it far more difficult for a president to declare martial law, to veto legislation and to suspend the right of habeas corpus, which protects an accused against illegal detention.

Initially, members such as Ople, a veteran, conservative legislator who served as Marcos’ campaign manager during the fraud-tainted February presidential election, feared that “we would clip the president’s power too much and end up with nothing but a . . . figurehead.”

‘New Leash’ on President

But now, even Ople said he believes “the new leash” on the presidency is an improvement over Marcos’ constitution.

“It is as it should be. The president will have to fall back on negotiating skills rather than using brute force,” he said.

The presidential curbs are also the most often-cited proof by ardent Aquino supporters on the panel that it is, as Aquino requested, totally independent of her, even though she personally appointed all 48 members.

Ople, a frequent and open critic of the Aquino administration, said: “There is a conspicuous lack of interference from the presidency, even in vital areas where her presidency is concerned. . . . There is a complete freedom of action here.”

Blocs Form, Dissolve

In such a free-wheeling environment, Ople said, “people only seem to be voting according to their own personal convictions: Blocs can form quickly and dissolve just as quickly--no party lines, no party programs, no parties at all.”

One example was a July 21 vote on whether the nation’s legislature should be bicameral, as in the U.S. Constitution, or unicameral, as in the Marcos constitution.

Commissioner Suarez and several other left-leaning members said they came prepared to vote for a unicameral system, which is seen as less costly for a nation beset by an economic crisis.

“But as I listened to all the arguments from the other side, I was convinced by them, and I voted for bicameral,” Suarez said. “It’s almost too good to be true, but it is the power of agreement that rules here, not the power of politics.”

The open-minded atmosphere at the commission hearings, combined with the deep social, and sometimes religious, convictions of many of the members has spawned some unusual debates.

A Matter of Love

Among the most heated exchanges, for example, were those involving capital punishment, abortion and the inclusion of the word love in the constitution’s preamble.

The love debate centered on whether that word, which supporters said was included to reflect the demeanor of Aquino and the Filipino people as a whole, was appropriate in so sober a document as a national constitution.

“Love cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be constitutionalized,” argued Commissioner Wilfrido Villacorta. Surprisingly, the biggest supporters of the word included the four members from Marcos’ New Society Movement political party. One Marcos supporter, Rustico delos Reyes, argued in favor of the word because, he said, it would prevent Aquino from “an orgy of vengeance and reprisal” against those who supported the exiled ruler.

In the end, love remained in the preamble, which refers to “a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality and peace.” One international constitutional expert on the panel asserted that the constitution, if ratified in December, will be the only one in the world containing that word.

More Serious Overtones

Other debates--especially those focusing on religious issues--have had far more serious overtones. There is a powerful religious bloc within the commission--a bishop, a priest and a nun, all Roman Catholics, and two Protestant pastors--and critics have charged that the commission has been trying to legislate religion into the constitution of this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation.

During the floor discussion on the Bill of Rights, the clergymen on the panel argued that the charter should safeguard the rights of the unborn fetus by stating clearly, “life begins with the fertilized ovum.”

After a four-hour debate, the body decided that such a controversy was in the realm of legislation, not “constitutionalization,” as many members term their task. The issue was left to the legislature that will be elected early next year if the charter is approved.

“Most of these controversies come about because some of the commissioners are assuming the role of legislator, which is almost irresistible for many of the members who were legislators before,” said Felicitas Aquino, one of the commission’s floor leaders. “We should resist that.”

Would Ban Foreign Bases

However, Commissioner Aquino, who is not related to the president, has been spearheading an effort to include a provision in the constitution banning all foreign military bases in the country after 1991. That measure would force the shutdown of America’s two largest military bases on foreign soil, Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, when the current bases agreement expires.

Under Commissioner Aquino’s leadership, a subcommittee approved the provision by a 7-to-2 vote, but it will not be voted on by the commission as a whole until the final weeks of hearings.

In those weeks, the most controversial subjects--those involving issues of social justice and rights of the poor--will arise, according to Commissioner Bernardo Villegas, a respected economic analyst who supported President Aquino during her campaign.

‘The Crucial Stage’

“This will be the crucial stage when we have the opportunity to emphasize in the final charter the preferential love for the poor,” Villegas said, adding that 70% of all Filipinos live below the poverty line.

If provisions such as mandatory land reform and workers’ rights are included and enforced by the elected leaders, he said, it is possible that the new constitution will bring about a fundamental change in Philippine society in the near future.

Most of the constitutional commission members, however, are from the wealthier classes; many of them are millionaires and all but 15 of them are owners of large, landed estates. Villegas was asked if such a body could make financial sacrifices for the poor.

“Throughout history,” he said, “the ones most concerned about the poor are the rich and highly educated. Usually, the poor are too engrossed in day-to-day survival to look beyond it.”