Last of three parts
This article is from a speech delivered in observance of Constitution Day at the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), Manila Polo Club, on Feb. 10, 2026.
I NOW come to my last submission which is the imperative need to give life to the first principle declared in Article II of the 1987 Constitution which states: “The Philippines is a democratic and republican state. Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.”
Our 1935 and 1973 Constitutions defined the Philippines as a republican state. In contrast, our 1987 Constitution redefined the Philippines not only as a republican state but as a democratic state. In describing the Philippine State, it characterized our State first as democratic then as republican. The reason is understandable: the Philippine State today owes its existence to the direct exercise by the people of their direct sovereignty. History tells us that our people in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s were betrayed by their elected representatives, hence, in February 1986 at EDSA, the people revolted, ousted their elected representatives and by the use of people power established a new government. In retaking the power they delegated to their elected representatives who betrayed their trust, the people gave flesh and blood to the democratic principle that “sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.”
Given the genesis of our State, that it is the product of people power, the 1987 Constitution should have spelled out the process by which the people can exercise their direct sovereignty when their representatives betray their delegated trust. Think of the tinderbox political situation of the country today. The magnitude of corruption that attended the flood control projects of the government appears to implicate the major branches of our government. This has stoked the unprecedented anger of the people and their despondency. Their perception is that our officials who should solve this problem are the problems themselves. Hence, the emerging view is that it is only the people and no other, who can resolve the problem in the exercise of their direct sovereignty. Our quandary, however, is that the 1987 Constitution failed to provide the process on how the people themselves can take over the problem in direct exercise of their sovereignty. This overlooked void should be the subject of immediate reform. Otherwise, we face the prospect that our angry people may resort to violence to settle the problem. Or we face the danger of unwanted military intervention to avoid the rule of the unruly.
But the 1987 Constitution did not only fail to give muscular reality to our first principle that our State is democratic and that sovereignty resides in the people. Consider what it did to the power of the people to amend the Constitution through a people’s initiative. Its Article XVII, Section 2 imposed the requirement that there must be a petition of at least 12 per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters therein. This requirement makes it extremely difficult if not impossible for the people to amend the Constitution through their initiative. It makes a mockery of the principle that the people are sovereign and all government authority emanates from them.
Further, the 1987 Constitution may have inadvertently blurred the metes and bounds of the political question doctrine. Stripped of its esoterics, the political question doctrine prohibits the courts from resolving cases that the Constitution has committed to the political branches of government led by the elected of the people or reserved for the people themselves. These cases involve policy determinations, hence, inappropriate for judicial intervention by judges and justices. It is a pillar of the principle of separation of powers and of checks and balances. It is also intended to strengthen the people’s sovereign right to resolve problems addressed to the people themselves. Unfortunately, the 1987 Constitution appears to have clouded the political question doctrine when under its Article VIII, Section 1, it “expanded judicial power to include the duty to xxx determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion... on the part of any branch or instrumentality of government.” Improvidently applied, this can empower courts to emasculate the doctrine of political questions to the detriment of the sovereign right of the people to resolve them in proper cases. Its creeping erosion can enthrone an imperial court, destroy the principle of separation of powers and checks and balances, which is the end all and be all of democracy. Chiseled in the Constitution is the principle that we did not install a government run by the unelected. It teaches us that the courts are not the repository of remedies for all problems that confront our democracy. The taciturn truth is that the doctrine of political questions is also designed to protect courts, to insulate them from political cases where there are no governable standards to guide them. Grave abuse of discretion is not such a standard. Courts must beware for history teaches us that courts that enter the forbidden political thicket get devoured in the process.
There is so much to discuss about our problems as a democracy. The constraints of time compel me to stop the further meanderings of my mind. The solutions to our problems require the revision and improvement of our 39-year-old 1987 Constitution. Some of the provisions of our 1987 Constitution have been used by the unscrupulous to subvert our democracy. We must change some provisions of our Constitution to meet the necessities of the time. The continuing failure to adjust our Constitution to accommodate the mutating interest of our people can cause our destruction as a democratic State. Let not Congress block the revision and improvement of our Constitution. God forbid if it does. For if it does, the people may resort to self-help and unguided it can be hijacked by anti-democratic forces. I ask you to join me in discussing every conceivable dimension of these challenges to our democracy, our chosen way of life. Our duty in Philconsa is to help in every conceivable way to protect the rule of law and strengthen the precepts of our democracy, now and not later.
Reynato S. Puno is a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.
