Power to prevent lawless violence, rebellion or invasion from spreading

Section 18, Article VII of the Constitution provides: “The President shall be the Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces of the Philippines and whenever it becomes necessary, he may call out such armed forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion, or rebellion. In case of invasion or rebellion, when the public safety requires it, he may, for a period not exceeding sixty days, suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus or place the Philippines or any part thereof under martial law.”

The above provision talks of three specific powers of the president: (1) to call out the armed forces when necessary in order to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion; and in case of invasion or rebellion and when public safety requires, (2) to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and (3) to declare martial law.

We can all agree that lawless violence is now happening in Marawi. It is then clearly within the power of President Duterte to call out the armed forces (which he already had) to suppress such
violence. This power draws rationale from the fact that no civilian official other than the president, as commander in chief, can summon an unlimited number of police and military troops from out of their normal or regular assignments and move them to any place where an abnormal or emergency situation exists.

However, unless what is happening in Marawi can be considered invasion or rebellion, methinks the President may as yet, strictly speaking, neither declare martial law nor suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. This is without prejudice to the more or less reasonable presumption that, regarding the true state of the nation, the President knows more than what any other government official does, giving him the appropriate information
to make a calculated judgment call to do what is necessary as public safety requires.

Meanwhile, there are divergent views on this issue. Christian Monsod, a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission, has been quoted in the news as saying he does not think rebellion exists at this time; and so, declaring a state of emergency, instead of martial law, would have been sufficient to address the situation in Marawi. Law professor Antonio La Viña opined that the declaration of martial law was justified, but only in Marawi City and if all the terror attacks were true.

To a certain extent, I beg to disagree. Following the Ampatuan massacre on Nov. 23, 2009, then President Gloria Arroyo declared martial law, and suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus a few days thereafter, in Maguindanao. I don’t recall any mention of rebellion in related news reports.

On the other hand, the above-quoted Charter provision gives the president the power not only to suppress an existing lawless violence, invasion or rebellion but also to prevent the same from
befalling on or spilling into adjacent localities.

The foregoing are, of course, purely and only a layman’s point of view and must yield in due course to the views of Congress and the Supreme Court.

RUDY L. CORONEL, [email protected]