Ebojo & Manalastas 1

MODULE 10
NAME: EBOJO, MEYNARD
PROFESSOR: ANN MARGARIT P. BERSANO, MPA (CAR)
SUBJECT: Political Governance with Philippine Constitution
DATE: DECEMBER 2, 2020
I. Self-Learning Activity
Activity 1-1
To enrich your learning of this module, please do the following activity:
Imagine that you are to deliver a speech in a Human Rights Convention. Prepare a 600-800
word persuasive or argumentative speech on any topic of your choice related to Human
Rights or the Bill of Rights. Please cite at least two references. You may also choose from the
following topics:
1. Is there no justice in the Philippines?
2. Capital punishment is unjust and degrading.
3. The Philippines should impose a tax on Churches.
4. The use of torture as an interrogation tool for heinous crimes like rape and murder
5. The requirement for a warrant for search and seizure should be dropped.
Is there no justice in the Philippines?
Justice, a single word we always utter, is it vivid or blocked with the smokes of ashes?
Ladies and gentlemen, a pleasant day to all of you.
Our country Philippines is being praised and admired by many because we Filipinos
are hospitable, we have a stronghold of extending concerns for others. We open-heartedly
welcome visitors in our places with big smiles drawn on our faces. We even prepare a banquet
to ensure that our guests are comfortable. But with all those mentioned acts, do we all
Filipinos share the same feeling of how our government and fellow citizens treat us? Is being
hospitably applicable for all or it’s just for elites and aliens? Are our government actions and
programs equal, fair, and just? Basically, for me, definitely not. For almost 2 decades of
existence, I constantly witness fellow Filipino mourning and suffering from discrimination,
racism, and injustices.
Yes, the Philippine 1987 Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
encapsulates the liberty of life, right to education, participation, access to public services, and
other aspects concerning the welfare and security of every human individual, yet concretely
applied with full fabrication and biases. Logical reasonings of our leaders and to those
individuals to hold the position of providing service to the public are being clouded with
cruelty and greed due to the obsession with the culture of crab mentality. As such, the Justice
program in our country, the Philippines is just an illusion for marginal Filipinos who are
mostly living a simple life in a far-flung and remote locale in the country. These groups and
families are usually deprived of experiencing interventions and implementation of education,
health, and economic programs to alleviate illiteracy, poverty, and hunger. In a specific
instance, access to public health services. A patient delivered in a hospital, catching air to live
with a cloth full of bloodstains is being disregarded and ignored due to the absence of
financial capability to pay for the expense in performing medication. So surreal to imagine
that many individuals suffer from this kind of management where just recently, 15 billion
worth of PhilHealth Fund is being hoarded by the Agency Officials. The funds must have
been utilized in improving public health – providing free medication to all Filipinos.
Additionally, our farmers who plow rice fields under the striking heat of the sun, cultivating
crops to sustain our needs in foods are being paid less than their expenses. They are even
criticized and degraded without realizing that their strengths and efforts are what feds us.
During electoral campaigns, we can always hear politicians promising to address the
challenges of our dear farmers; when a victory reigned, sweet promises became swallowed
candy.
Philippines, a country rich in resources with a multitude of social injustices. A country
with fame seeker and gold digger system. No social justice. Injustices are multiplying fold by
fold.
You may be wondering if there is no social justice in the Philippines, then what about
criminal justice? This would be a shameful answer; Accordingly, our country has the slowest
justice system. This is mainly because of the rampant bribes and corruption practice by our
national police and other judicial authorities. We shouldn’t have to forget what happened 10
years ago in the Maguindanao Massacre. Many families lost the lives of their loved ones,
without achieving the justice they truly deserved. The case until now is silent and somehow
put onto a memory – no single indication that our government is working to let the criminals
pay for the damage they have caused to our fellow Filipinos in Mindanao.
Only a week ago, we witnessed a police officer brutally kill a mother and son in front
of the public due to a pretty discourse. A traumatizing event – bright daylight with eyes wide-
opened, an individual who is believed will give us protection, made us realize that trusting
authorities is as risky as facing a life and death battle nowadays.
We never really have experienced a fulfillment to justice in any dimension in our
country. Our laws are enough, yet our leaders, the individual who work behind those laws are
incompetent and monsters. Thereupon, we should have to crush the power these monsters are
wielding. In our current situation, we need to act to amplify our rights, denounce injustices
and decide that would make a difference.

II. Looking Back

Activity 1-2
Check your understanding of the module by answering the assessment below.
I. KNOWLEDGE. Write True if the statement is correct and False if it is not. If the answer
is False, please provide a brief reason why the sentence is not valid.
1. The government has the right to deprive citizens of life, liberty, and property at all times.
- False- even though the government can propose and implement several laws for
managing and controlling the nation’s affairs, the government has no right to deprive
citizens of life, liberty, and property at all times. Such deprivation of the said survival
elements is against and can be punishable basing on the 1987 Philippine Institution
Human Rights Law.
2. A search or seizure made without a warrant is not necessarily illegal.
- True
3. Because we have freedom of expression, we can readily utter or publish lewd or obscene
words, as well as seditious words.
- False, there are some kinds of speech that are not protected under the law which
includes publication of lewd or obscene words, as well as sedition words.
4. No one has the right to refuse to pay taxes because it is against their religion or faith.
- True
5. Certain public records cannot be accessed by the citizens even if they assert their right to
information on matters of public concern.
- True
6. A piece of land owned by a citizen can be taken away from him to be used as a mayor's
private road in the cloak of the government's power of an eminent domain.
 - False, The Power of eminent domain is the right of the state to take or expropriate
property for public use and are not for private convenience to any other government
officials.
7. The government can interfere with the contracts of any party.
- False – the government cannot just directly interfere with the contracts of any party.
Every governmental action must undergo due process as a means of observation and
honor to the Data Privacy Act.
8. A police officer or a private citizen can arrest if the arrest is considered a flagrante
delicto arrest.
- True
9. If the state confines a person with an infectious disease, the person's liberty is being
violated.
- False – confining a person with an infectious disease is a way of protecting the
person’s health problems from spreading to other individuals. The act is not a
deprivation of liberty, rather an immediate response to take good care of the person’s
dilemma.
10. A religion is a cloth by religious freedom thus can have a person be offered as a sacrifice
to their God.
- False - Yes, a religion is cloth with religious freedom which means that they can
worship and profess religious belief, but, taking away a person's life for a sacrifice is
excluded and categorized as an infringement of the law (right to life).
11. Evidence illegally obtained cannot be used in a court of law.
- True
12. Bail is still allowed even if the accused has commenced serving a sentence.
- False - The only exception for an accused who was not allowed to bail is when, after
the judgment has become final or when the accused has started serving the sentence.
13. A law that punishes a person committing theft by cutting both of his hands is tantamount
to deprivation of life.
- True
14. A trial may proceed even in the absence of the accused.
- False – everyone has the right to a fair trial, hence court hearings in the absence of the
accused shouldn’t be made possible – must be rescheduled, in other circumstances, the
 case will be dismissed.
15. Non-payment of tax is a crime in our country.
- True

II. COMPREHENSION AND ANALYSIS. (10 points each)

1. What are the various components of due process in a criminal procedure? In your
response, include some examples of procedural protections that are afforded to
individuals in a criminal case?
- Laws are made for protection, not for decorations. Hence, when the rights of every
individual are violated or abused by another individual, justice must be served before
the law in due process. In such conduct, the pillars enumerated below must be
considered.
I. LAW ENFORCEMENT PROCESS - This process constitutes mainly of police
agencies (PNP, NBI, PDEA and etc.) which is form by the government to work for the
enforcement of laws, investigate crimes or wrongdoings, effecting the arrest of
offenders, including the conduct of lawful searches and seizures to gather necessary
evidences so that a complaint may be filled in the prosecutor's office.
Constitutional Rights: the right to remain silent and seek a personal lawyer.
II. PROSECUTION PROCESS - A prosecutor conducts a preliminary investigation and
performs such evaluation of the proofs at hand by the police, determining if there's a
probable cause or none. If the result is none, the case will be dismissed and if the
result is positive, the prosecutor will file a corresponding information to the proper
court.
III. THE JUDICIAL PROCESS - A process of settling the dispute in the court, thus,
administering proper justice to the accused. In this, the court must determine the guilt
of the accused– beyond reasonable doubt, based on the strength of evidence of the
prosecution. If there is any reasonable doubt that the accused committed the crime, he
has to be acquitted.
Rights during trial: a. To be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved beyond
reasonable doubt; b. To be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against
him.
IV. PENAL OR CORRECTIONAL PROCESS - Punishment is the isolation of the
 convicts by imprisonment for the periods laid down by the courts or in extreme cases,
their execution by the method prescribed by law—and correction and rehabilitation are
functions undertaken by the institutions set up by law, e.g., the Bureau of Prisons,
Parole and Probation Administration.
V. THE COMMUNITY - After the convicts have passed through the correction
component—either unconditionally (as by full service of the term of imprisonment
imposed on them), or by parole or pardon—they go back to the community and either
lead normal lives as law-abiding citizens in their barangays, or, regrettably, commit
other crimes and thus, go back through the same processes and stages of the criminal
justice system.

2. Discuss when a police officer needs a search warrant? What will the police need to
demonstrate to the judge to obtain a search warrant?
- A search warrant is a legal document required in the search for evidence, the conduct
of investigations and temporarily put an accused individual into legal custody as a
practice and observation to due process in seeking for criminal justice for the crimes
or questionable incidents that happened, vis-a-vis a police officer will need such
document when a crime is being reported and he is tasked or ordered to look for the
accused - bring him to custody for investigation “ warrant of arrest”, or in searching
for pieces of evidence of the crime that happened inside the accused’s vicinity or area.
Further, in every conduct of search or seizures, in normal and usual cases, search
warrant or warrant of arrest must be reasonable and legal - signed by a judge after a
reported crime or incident - probable cause is determined to ensure that the accused
rights as a person is being respected before the law; failure to abide the proper conduct
of seizures is subject to legal sanctions.