Views in anticipation of our Constitutional Convention in 1970-1971

Title

Creator

Sinco, Vicente G.

Language

English

Year

1968

Subject

Constitutional conventions -- 1970 – 1971.

Philippines. Constitution

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

VIEWS IN ANTICIPATION OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION IN 1970 1971 The other day, two of our friends happened to drop in at my place in Foundation College for a visit. In the course of an interesting con versation they mentioned their expectations about the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention to be held in 1970. I remarked that the subject deserves the serious consideration of all the citizens of our country. For one thing, it should be taken as primarily a civic problem and a transcendent national undertaking in its nature and significance. It should never therefore be treated as a mere partisan political matter and should not be disposed of as an is sue between our political parties and factions. For in stance, in the case of the 1934 Convention, all parties and their leaders agreed to set aside partisan considera tions in the selection of the delegates and in the way the election campaign was to be waged. That agreement, al though not completely ob served, was a wise and pa triotic gesture. For partisan political campaigns, observed the famed and perceptive scholar and author James Harvey Robinson, are “emo tional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved.” Pro ceeding in this line, he re marked that political party struggles, “paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.” The Constitutional Con vention is not an institution comparable or similar to Congress or the office of the President or of the provincial Governor, or of the City Mayor or of other kinds of political offices. It is essen tially different. Unlike Con gressmen and Senators, the delegates have no power or influence to secure favors and privileges for themselves 2 Panorama and their friends. They have no power to vote huge allow ances for themselves or for others. They have no power to threaten businessmen or personal enemies with trou blesome investigations. They have no means within their official function to perpe tuate themselves in their posts. They hold office for only a few months. They are intrusted to perform only one thing: to draft a pro posed constitution which will not be effective at all unless the national electorate ap prove it. The provisions of a Consti tution are not intended to benefit a particular region, class, interest, or group. They are meant to protect and advance the interests of all the elements of the popu lation of our country. They are intended to correct prac tices performed by our Gov ernment which have been shown to be detrimental to the general welfare. They may introduce new features which have proved benefi cial in other countries similar in some ways to our own. Therefore, the voters have to choose delegates who have no particular interests to serve, who are not bound to serve and advance the spe cial needs and conditions of a particular political party, sectarian group, social class, or economic clique. Of course, it is not easy to achieve this goal; but it is obvious that it can be ap proximated only when dele gates are not under the direct control of particular parties or special interests or are not elected at the behest of poli tical chieftains who are not motivated by truly high, im partial, and enlightened in terests. President Quezon, Osmena, and Sumulong, and others were political leaders of this type and persuasion. They positively refused to in ject partisan and narrow per sonal considerations in the selection of the delegates in 1934. In this particular mat ter, they acted as real disin terested national leaders; and they continually showed that lofty spirit of statesmanship in the organization of the Constitutional Convention in 1934-1935. The voters should be made aware about these things. They should there fore ask and vote for candi July 1968 3 dates who are known to have the best of these qualifica tions. If a person runs mere ly to enjoy the honor of be ing a signer of the Consti tution or to be remembered as some sort of rebuilder of the Nation but does not know exactly how and why its provisions have been in troduced, considered, inter preted, and approved, such person does not deserve to be elected delegate to the Convention. He could easily be misled into approving mischievous ideas and prac tices. If one becomes a dele gate just because he has the support of selfish political bosses, he may not be ex pected to exercise intelligent ly the freedom and responsi bility of a delegate who should work only for the highest interests of the coun try today and in the years to come. We need to inform every Filipino citizen, particularly the voters, that the Consti tution is not like a law of Congress or a municipal or dinance that can be easily changed any time of the year when found defective or inadequate by perceptive observers. Once a Constitu tion is approved it acquires a degree of permanence for one or more generations. It becomes very difficult to change its provisions includ ing those parts that are found inadequate and unsatisfac tory. Hence, delegates to the Constitutional Con vention should be men of tested abi lity and ripe knowledge con cerning basic questions af fecting the social, economic, and educational life of the country. Among them there should be persons who have made a careful and critical study of the workings of our basic laws and the record of our government institutions. They should be mature and responsible individuals who have a broad understanding of our past and of the pre sent social, economic, and political conditions. They are better prepared to revise and improve our present Constitution than those who have not had this special ex perience and observation. Those who are acqainted with the constitutional char ters of progressive nations today are undoubtedly well qualified to draft a desirable 4 Panorama and workable constitution for our country. But in addition to having exceptional competence and broad knowledge of social and economic institutions, our delegates should be per sons of unquestioned honesty and integrity who are ready to forget and set aside per sonal and selfish motives in the adoption of this basic document. Their objective should be to produce a docu ment that could promote the welfare of all the elements of the nation. No individual who does not have these special quali fications of mind and charac ter should be considered worthy of holding a seat in the Constitutional Conven tion. No responsible poli tical, civic, economic, or so cial leader should try to per suade voters to vote for such a candidate. One who does not have the necessary qua lifications for a Convention seat should not have the pre sumption and temerity to present his candidacy for it. But we should not forget that there are men in our country today with very limited competence, dubious morality, and insufficient preparation who often take risks to be elected to any post of power or honor espe cially when they have the money, political influence, and power to attract to their camp the innocent, the in competent, and the needy voters. It is therefore, essen tial that responsible and in telligent citizens, such as the members of the Lions Club and similar associations of high purpose, should form themselves into militant groups to support candidates who are educationally and morally fit to serve as dele gates. When the Constitu tional Convention comes un der the direction of delegates of special ability, intellectual maturity, educational pre paration, and moral temper, we will have reason to hope for a Constitution more suit able to the needs and condi tions of our people and coun try. But there is more than the act of electing knowledge able men and women to the Constitutional Con vention, more than just bringing to gether persons of high ideals, tested integrity, and prac tical experience. We should remember that a constitu July 1968 5 tional convention does not and cannot exist in a vacuum. There is also the need for the people of the country to maintain active awareness of the measures proposed du ring its meetings and delibe rations. This is an attitude and a stance that must be of urgent compelling necessity specially to the educated citi zenry and the press and other agencies of public com munication. For proposals within the convention may not always turn out to be effective solutions of our na tional problems. Moreover, in an assembly of two or three hundred individuals, there may be a few who may represent interests unfriendly to our national ideals and there may even be a few who may work to promote dis torted purposes. This is not a mere possibility but a pro bability in view of the fact that in our society today money exerts a great in fluence and an unusual at traction that not a few of our men in public office could resist. As modern constitutional conventions are seldom in clined to hold their sessions behind closed doors, it is no longer difficult therefore for public opinion or outside personal views to be express ed favorably or unfavorably to constitutional proposals as they are discussed within the convention hall. When intelligent public opinion is expressed in support of pro visions proposed by delegates with vision and unselfishness, the chances of including wise and essential rules in our basic law are greatly en hanced. For instance,/in the convention of 1934-1935, the provision organizing a unica meral legislature to take the place of the former bicame ral legislature was at first supported by less than a mere handful of delegates. It was not understood and was therefore attacked by most of the delegates. Most people outside the hall were almost completely ignorant about the system. But news papers saw the advantages of the proposal and thus sup ported it with vigorous edi torials and articles so that in the end that novel feature of our legislative system was finally adopted by the Con vention and approved by the 6 Panorama people. President Quezon who was against it in the be ginning had to come out in praise of the system. Again the idea of the 6-year term of the President of the Phil ippines without re-election was passed under the same or similar circumstances^ The article of the Constitution nationalizing to a great ex tent the operation of public utilities and the ownership of land and natural resources were not popular among cer tain vested interests. But the delegates had the force of public opinion behind them, and so they were able to give it a definite place in our Constitution. But let us remind ourselves that the written or formal parts of the Constitution cannot give absolute pro tection to. whatever the peo ple want or to what we think the country should have. One of our Filipino scholars of the former generation once stated in an address at the University of the Philippines, when I was a student there, that a constitution is only a piece of paper. It is lifeless as such. It derives its life from the faithful and firm adherence to it by those en trusted by the people to en force and to carry it out as much as possible in order that we could see from its workings at least two things: first, that its purposes are being fulfilled; and second, that its defects may be seen and when seen they may be properly corrected through necessary amendments pro vided in the constitution it self. We need to know that no constitution is perfect in its substance and no constitu tion could work out exactly as expected. Moreover, in these days of sudden and revolutionary changes brought about by new dis coveries of science and tech nology, and even by the penetrating cogitation or in tuition of the cognoscente, certain parts and provisions of the existing Constitution would seem to be no longer necessary. In fact, certain parts may no longer be de sirable. In mentioning this state of things arising from changes in today’s life and condiiton, I have reference to all of the existing consti tutions. But referring to our own Constitution in particu July 1968 7 lar I might say that more basic changes are necessary because besides the conse quences resulting from the revolution of scientific ideas and social attitudes that have taken place during the last 25 years affecting the world at large, our own Constitu tion had taken as a model a constitutional plan sociolo gically and historically for eign to us — the Constitu tion of the United States. The American Constitution was based on conditions and needs of the thirteen British Colonies in North America. It was originally framed as an answer to the problems that their leaders of about 200 years ago conceived and decided in response to those problems. With slight modi fications we adopted that Coii stitution. Theoretically and as a formal document, it is structurally a good mo del. The strangest part of it all, however, was that we did not even care to adopt those features of our previous organic laws and govern mental institutions which we had tried during our brief autonomous political life. We did not even give much thought to certain ideas of our outstanding leaders in respect to the formal organi zation of our national govern ment. For all these and other reasons, the need for amend ing the present Constitution to make it fit and suitable to our conditions and our social and economic needs and to adjust it to our ex perience in our political life is very clearly urgent in the minds of most thoughtful and enlightened Filipinos. This coming Constitutional Convention will be the first instance in our history, out side of the Malolos Congress of 1889, when we will have the chance of drafting and approving a Constitution at a time when we are indepen dent of foreign rule. A con vention under an indepen dent Philippines is in fact long overdue. So many problems have pestered our people over the years after the last world war. They need new solutions, so lutions that could be within our power to provide. A number of these solutions are extremely difficult if not impossible to devise by mere ly legal methods. Problems of peace and order, problems Panorama of abuse of governmental au thority, problems of educa tion, problems of social and economic improvement, pro blems arising from the power of taxation and public fi nance, problems of the ad ministration of justice, and others that need not be men tioned at present and dis cussed. The time and the occasion are neither suffi cient nor appropriate. It is enough that we mention them in order that we may realize the importance of selecting our best available men who should act as our delegates to the Constitu tional Convention of 19701971. — By V. G. Sinco. THE MAKE-UP OF PEOPLE The People! Like our huge earth itself, which, to ordinary scansion, is full of vulgar contradiction and offense, man, viewed in the lump, displeases, and is a constant puzzle and affront to the merely edu cated classes. The rare,, cosmical artist-mind, lit with the Infinite, alone confronts his manifold and ocean Qualities — but taste, intelligence and culture (socalled) have been against the masses, and remain so. There is plenty of glamor about the most dam nable crimes and hoggish meannesses, special and general of the feudal and dynastic world over there, with its personnel of lords and queens and courts, so well dressed and so handsome. But the People are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins gaunt and illbred. — Walt Whitman. July 1968 9

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