In A Parallel Universe When The President Is Overthrown: A Proposed Constitutional Amendment
For our final exam in Constitution I, our prof, who is questionably merciful (?) when he released our block’s final grade, asked us to propose a constitutional amendment and I quote: “Suppose you are a member of a Constitutional Commission created by a revolutionary council that had just recently ousted the present government with instructions to write a charter that will truly respond to the needs and problems of the Filipino people.”
Just in case you’d like to blame him for what I’ve chosen to write, just take note of the following clues: He’s one of the younger profs in UP Law who topped the bar in the past five years or so and his undergrad was from UST. Hehehe.
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A Proposal Amending Section 4, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution
The ouster of the Arroyo government (2001-2004, 2005) and the events that preceded thereof called for please from the different sectors of society to amend the present Constitution, which is, after 18 years in existence, not fool proof after all against abusive officials led by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who could be distinctly remembered as running for the 2004 Presidential Elections after having succeeded another ousted President Joseph Ejercito Estrada.
For such reason, it is deemed best to start the amendment of the Constitution in the provision covering the term of the President.
Section 4 (1) of Article VII (Executive Department) is read as follows:
“The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any reelection. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.”
Said provision was included in the 1987 Constitution after the ouster of dictator and former President Ferdinand Marcos. It could be remembered that he served for a total of 21 years until his ouster through the first EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986. It should be noted that when Marcos assumed the presidency in 1965, he was under the provisions of 1935 Constitution which provides, under Section 5 of Article VII (Executive Department) that “no person shall serve for more than eight consecutive years”. Marcos clearly intended to serve more than the allowed time and for that reason, imposed Martial Law in 1972 and a year after, replaced the 1935 Constitution with the 1973 Constitution. Such move extended his term of office which should have ended in 1973. Furthermore, the people were removed of the right to suffrage as, in the 1973 Constitution, it was provided that the President shall be elected from among the Members of the National Assembly by a majority vote of all its Members. Note that these assemblymen were just puppet legislators during the Martial Law era.
The framers of the 1987 Constitution, with the obvious intent of never letting such event in history happen again, provided for a six year Presidential term with no reelection. However, the seemingly innocent last sentence of the first paragraph of Section 4 of Article VII provided Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a loophole to circumvent the law.
Arroyo was remembered for her Rizal Day statement that she would not run for the Presidency after having served as successor for the remaining four years of ousted Estrada. Notwithstanding questions of constitutionality regarding the involvement of the Judiciary in Arroyo’s oathtaking during the second EDSA People Power Revolution, she justified her acts, remained in the Palace and thereafter broke her promise not to run for the 2004 Elections to further extend her stay.
After her election, amid calls from the opposition that she should resign because of allegations of impeachable offenses, she went on proposing for reconciliation through a change of the system of government from Presidential to Parliamentary and a consequent amendment of the 1987 Constitution. Many people believed that this was just a ploy, a circumvention of the law, to once again extend her stay in Malacañang.
With the suppression of the freedom of speech through illegal arrests of protesters and rallyists and the killing of the impeachment trial through the cohorts of the Administration in Congress, people feared an impending declaration of Martial Law, an alternative scenario that gives the President, through the approval of Congress, the reason to extend her stay in Malacañang.
For this, I am proposing the amendment of Section 4 of Article VII.
Section 4 of Article VII (Executive Department) shall be amended as follows:
“Section 4. The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any reelection. No person who has succeeded as President within the six-year term or whether the remainder of the term is four years or one day, shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time in order to avoid the abuse of the newly-assumed President in using his vast powers and authority to ensure his election to the presidency.
“In the event the Vice-President wishes to run for the presidency in order to serve for a full six-year term in the next presidential election, he shall waive his right to succeed as President, and let the Senate President assume the presidency.”
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Given such amendment, any successor to the presidency will be prevented from abusing the powers given to the President. It should be remembered that regardless of the nature of ascent to the presidency, the elected or the successor enjoys the same rights and privileges. Under the 1987 Constitution, a successor, even if he serves only for one day as President, may possibly abuse his authority and declare Martial Law, a worst-case scenario, that as mentioned earlier, gives the abusive President a reason to wallow in Palace.
