Post war Philippine Governments

After the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese control in

1944, the Americans restored the Commonwealth Government in the
Philippines with Sergio Osmena as President (Quezon died while exile
inthe US). As provided earlier by the Tydings-Mcduffie Law, the
Americans granted Philippine independence on July 4, 1946. Thus,
the
Third Republic, which adopted the 1935 Constitution, and still in
effect. Afterwhich, six presidents had administered the government
of thisRepublic (Roxas, Quirino, Magsaysay, Macapagal, and Marcos).
In 1965, Ferdinand E. Marcos was elected president. Marcos
wonthe re-election in 1969, in a bid boosted by campaign
overspending and
use of government funds. in 1967, Philippine Congress passed a
resolution calling for a constitutional convention to change the
1935Constitution.On August 24, 1970, RA No. 6132 was approved
setting November10, 1970 as an election day for 320 delegates to
the ConstitutionalConvention. Former President Carlos P. Garcia
being elected asconvention president. Unfortunately, he died, and
was succeeded by another former president, Diosdado
Macapagal.Before the convention finished its work, martial law
was declared.
Marcos cited a growing communist insurgency.
The convention started its work rewriting the Constitution on
June 1, 1971. The 1935 Constitution, with reference to
theMalolos Constitution, was made the basis for the drafting
of amendments to the new Constitution. After 15 months,
on its291
st
plenary session on November 29, 1972, the
conventionapproved the new proposed charter of the land.
The vote was273 in favor, 15 against, 27 absent. 1 refused to
vote. There were no abstentions. The proposed Constitution
was signed thefollowing day, November 30, 1972.
Earlier on September 21, 1972, Marcos issued
ProclamationNo. 1081 placing the entire country under
martial law. Tobroaden the base of citizen participation in
the democraticprocess, and to afford ample opportunities
for the citizenry toexpress their views on important
matters of local or nationalconcern, Presidential Decree
No. 86 was issued on December 3,1972 creating a Citizens
Assembly in each barrio inmunicipalities and in each
district in chartered cities throughout the country.
Subsequently, Presidential Decree No. 86A was issued on
January 5, 1973 defining the role of barangays (formerly
Citizens Assemblies). It provides that the barangay
created under PD 86shall constitute the base for cetizen
participation ingovernmental affairs and their collective
views shall beconsidered in the formulation of national
policies or programsand, whenever practicable, shall be
translated into concrete andspecific decisions.
The results revealed that 14,976,561
members of all theBarangays (Citizens
Assemblies) voted for the adoption of
theproposed Constitution, as against
743,869 who voted for itsrejection. On
question as to whether or not the people
wouldstill like a plebiscite to be called to
ratify the new Constitution,14,298,814
answered that there was no need for a
plebiscite.
On the basis of the above results showing that more
than 95%of the members of the Barangays (Citizen
Assemblies) were infavor of the new Constitution and
upon the strong recommendation of the
Katipunan ng mga Barangay
, Marcosissued Proclamation No. 1102 on January 17,
1973 certifying and proclaiming that the Constitution
proposed by the 1971Constitutional Convention had
been ratified by the Filipinopeople in a viva voce vote
and had thereby come in effect.
The 1973 Constitution was amended by the following:
•
The first, in 1976, gave the President, Legislative powers evenif the
Interim Batasang Pambansa was already operating.
•
The second, in 1980 was not significant. It merely raised
theretirement of justices of the SC from 65 to 70 as to
keepFernando for 5 more years.
•
The third, in 1980 changed the form of government
fromParliamentary to Presidential.
•
The fourth, in 1984, responded to the succession problem by
providing for a Vice-President.
The 1973 Constitution, promulgated after
Marcos’
declarationof martial law, was supposed to
introduced a parliamentary-stylegovernment.
Legislative power was vested in a unicameralNational
Assembly whose members were elected for six-
yearterms. The President was ideally elected as the
symbolic andpurely ceremonial head of state chosen
from amongst themembers of the National Assembly
for a six-year term and couldbe re-elected to an
unlimited number of terms
Executive power was meant to be exercised by the PrimeMinister who was also
elected from amongst the sitting Assemblymen. The Prime Minister was to be
the head of government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.But the
set up was subsequently amended. The 1976amendment are:
•
An Interim Batasang Pambansa (IBP) substituting for theInterim National
Assembly;
•
The President would also become the Prime Minister and he would continue to
exercise legislative powers until such timemartial law was lifted.
Other amendment authorized the President to legislate on
hisown on an
“emergency”
basis: Whenever in the judgement of the President there
exists a grave emergency or a treat imminence thereof, or
whenever theIBP fails or unable to act adequately on any
matter for any reason that in his judgement requires
immediate action, he may,in order to meet the exigency, issue
the necessary decrees,orders or letters of instructions, which
shall be form part of thelaw of the land.
In the 1981 amendment, the false parliamentary system
wasformally modified into a French-style semi-presidential
system:
•
Executive power was restored to the President;
•
Direct election of the President was restored;
•
An Executive Committee composed of the Prime Ministerand
not more than 14 members was created to
“assist
thePresident in the exercise of his powers and functions and
inthe cabinet
While the 1973 Constitution ideally provided for a true
parliamentary system, in practice, Marcos had made use of
subterfuge and
manipulation in order to keep executive powers for himself,
rather than
devolving these to the Assembly and the cabinet headed by the
PrimeMinister.The end result was the final form of the 1973
–
after all amendmentsand subtle manipulations- were merely
the abolition of the Senate and a series of cosmetic rewordings.
The old American-derived terminology was replaced by names more
ssociated with parliamentary government:
The House of Representatives became known as the
“
Batasang Pambansa
”
(National Assembly);
Departments became
“Ministries”,
and their cabinet secretaries
became known as
“cabinet ministers”,
with the President assistant
–
the Executive Secretary
–
being styled the
“Prime Minister”
.
Marcos’
purported parliamentary system in practice
functioned as anuthoritarian presidential
system, with all real power concentrated in
the
ands of the President but with the promise
that such was constitutional.