Ratification as people’s initiative

There may be a way out of this constitutional mess. Ironically, it comes from Fr. Joaquin Bernas, the arch critic of charter change today. In the 1987 Concom deliberations on people’s initiative, he asked "if the matter is left to the legislature – the details on how this is to be carried out – is it possible that, in effect, what will be presented to the people for ratification is the work of the legislature rather than of the people?" Commissioner Suarez answered it does not exclude that possibility. The legislature itself as a body could propose amendments, individually or collectively, but if it fails to muster the three-fourths vote in order to constitute itself as a constituent assembly it can submit that proposal to the people for ratification through the process of an initiative. The matter of implementing this could very well be placed in the hands of the National Assembly. Davide replied "As long as it will not destroy the substantive right of the people to initiate."

With a second people’s initiative for charter change in the offing and many roadblocks being put out it may be good to review its history. Senators, are already saying that it would be a futile effort ‘without an enabling law.’ Having had the experience of going through the mill, I do not believe that these lawmakers are looking for an enabling legislation. Even if there were one, they will still find some loophole to frustrate it. I can say with some certainty that what the senators are looking for is not an enabling law but a disabling law At bottom there is a more fundamental conflict and I do not know of any law that can settle the argument between the people and power holders. Who is sovereign in this country? Once we have decided this issue in favor of the people, then there is no other way but to let a people’s initiative through. It is argued that the promoters of people’s initiative (congressmen/women and local authority) are themselves power holders. True. But in supporting a people’s initiative they have crossed the line by their willingness to share some of that power. That cannot be said of those who adamantly refuse any charter change that will bring about power sharing.

I know what a journey for people’s initiative means. It is strewn with never ending hazards. In the first attempt at People’s Initiative, first stop was for citizen Jesus Delfin, guided by Resolution 2300 of the Commission on Elections on rules and regulations for an initiative to file a petition to fulfill its mandate. This resolution was designed to enable citizens for initiative by designating a time and place for signature gathering, publication of notice in newspapers and instructing municipal election registrars in all regions of the Philippines to assist petitioners and volunteers to put up signing stations. A TRO from the High Court stopped the electoral body from considering the request. No way will COMELEC help a citizen gather signatures. The citizen concerned must already have the signatures. How a citizen can gather millions of signatures without any help from relevant institutions escapes me. But that was the order and we bowed to the majesty of the Court.

That was the first hazard. So PIRMA meekly gathered the signatures required – 12 percent of the total electorate and 3 percent from each electoral district, convinced that this was the way to go. We gathered some 5.6 million signatures, loaded these on trucks and delivered at COMELEC’s door. Right then and there COMELEC began checking the signatures and about one million signatures had already been checked when a TRO was issued to stop the checking process. The Court said it could not do that until the substantial objection of whether there is an enabling law had been resolved.

In a memorable decision penned by Justice H. Davide on March 19, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of petitioners Miriam Defensor Santiago et al. It stopped the COMELEC from ‘entertaining or taking cognizance of any petition for initiative on amendments on the Constitution until a sufficient law shall have been validly enacted to provide for the implementation of the system.’ It also asked Congress to provide for its implementation as soon as possible for this is the right of the people under the system. Alas this did not happen. Indeed petitioner Miriam Defensor Santiago has been resurrected and recently pronounced that a people’s initiative is a waste of time because there is no enabling law. That said, how can you believe that there was ever a serious intent to right a wrong.

I wonder whatever happened to Senate Bill No. 1290 entitled An Act Prescribing and Regulating Constitutional Amendments by People’s Initiative that petitioner Senator Santiago filed on 24 November 1995. Last I heard it was still pending before the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments. The first amendment that could be proposed through the exercise of this initiative power would be made only after five years. As a commissioner of the 1987 Concom said "It is reasonably expected that within that five-year period, the National Assembly can come up with the appropriate rules governing the exercise of this power." Oh yeh?

In the political muddle which ensued, the public was made to believe that in fact ‘there was no enabling law to conduct a people’s initiative.’ That is not quite true. The Supreme Court said there was an enabling law, R.A. 6735 filed by the late Senator Raul Roco towards the end of Cory’s term. Roco argued this law was a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 17 and House Bill No. 21505 which he co-authored and he even delivered a sponsorship speech. However the Court said it was ‘inadequate’. It lacked a ‘subheading’ for an initiative to amend the Constitution.

The Supreme Court issued a TRO to stop COMELEC from completing its task because the enabling law was ‘insufficient’. While it made permanent a TRO against the electoral body, it lifted the TRO against PIRMA. This was a neat way of making sure a people’s initiative would not succeed but at the same time the Court could not be accused of abridging the freedom of speech. The Court ruled that it may have provided for three systems of initiative, namely, initiative on the Constitution, on statutes, and on local legislation the Court said it failed to provide any subtitle on initiative on the Constitution, unlike in the other modes of initiative, with Subtitle II and Subtitle III. "This" the court said was a deliberate omission that the matter of people’s initiative to amend the Constitution was left to some future law. The logic escapes me.

Justices Artemio Panganiban, Reynato Puno and five others dissented against this "strained interpretation." We must not "refuse to effectuate the intent of a law on the ground that it is badly written, because after all, our laws are not always written in impeccable English." Well said.

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