Congress hoodwinking people with new Cha-cha

Constitutionalism is taking a severe beating under the Aquino administration.

By proposing Charter change to amend the constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership of lands and natural resources, among other matters, with the qualifying words “unless otherwise provided by law,” the present leadership in Congress, with nothing more than a docile reaction from Mr. Aquino, is bent on performing another act that trivializes our Constitution.

This comes on the heels of the recently concluded Bangsamoro peace deal, which has ignored many of the parameters that our fundamental law has laid down in creating the political structure of our country.

The trivialization is clear. The conservation of the natural wealth of the nation for the benefit of Filipinos is a basic policy of the Constitution, and a diminution of that protection decidedly needs the approval of the people. If it is the intention of Congress to relax or lift the foreign ownership restrictions on our natural resources, it must level with the people and submit the issue to them, so that a proper and open debate can be conducted on the reasons why it is time to lift these restrictions. If the people agree after a full and open ventilation of the issue, so be it. But let it not be said that the wool was pulled over their eyes.

This is not what is happening. The issue has been presented in a different manner, and those behind its formulation must be masters at their craft indeed. The people are being asked, not whether they agree on lifting the constitutional restrictions, but whether they should surrender to Congress the right to lift them. What is a matter of serious constitutional concern for the whole people becomes the discretion of a few legislators.

True, there are other provisions of the Constitution that contain the phrase unless otherwise provided by law. But we will notice that the qualification only serves to limit the application of the general provision in specific instances. We have yet to come across a provision, in our Constitution or anywhere else, that allows a mere legislative body to abrogate it entirely. Proposing this kind of amendment demeans the Constitution and mocks the electorate who will be asked to vote on it.

We should never forget the distinction between the Constitution and an ordinary statute. Policies intended specifically to protect our national patrimony are raised to the level of a constitution in order to insulate them from the politics of any particular administration. They are to be changed only by the people. They cannot be reduced to ordinary statutes that more often than not are the result of backroom deals and partisan horse trading between lobbyists and politicians and are good only for the passing hour.

As Justice Cardozo once wrote, “The inn that shelters for the night is not the journey’s end. The constitution like the traveler must be ready for the morrow.”

—MARIO GUARIÑA III,

former associate justice,

Court of Appeals, Parañaque City