PHILIPPINE HISTORY

(From the fragments of jurisprudence)

EXORDIUM

With the introduction of K-12in our education system, a so-great disturbance

came like a whirlwind revolutionizing the seemingly adequate (now past)
educational structure that has been with us since then. Co-existent with the
cutting-edge methodology came as a necessity the change in the framework of
curriculum of study in college, which perforce must be revised or amended to
suit the remodelling, notably among others, in the study of Philippine History. It
came as a surprise, yet a great embrace, the mandate that a teacher of this
subject must teach Philippine History based on the accounts of those persons
who happened to experience the same—a rst-account-information-based
technique. At rst glance, it would be almost impossible for a history teacher to
get the materials in order to observe the mandate of “ rst-account” for even
most contemporary historians/authors of today obtained their knowledge of
history on accounts of historians/authors who have obtained it also on
accounts of those who have experienced it who are, at present, peacefully
resting in heaven. The problem lies now on reliance—will teachers of Philippine
history be allowed to use Philippine history books as sources, from authors who
have never had the experience of being an eye-witness? Having this in mind, I
thought, in futility, of a person who have had the involvement of every era, and
has a preserved reliable historical records and data, and who is still alive today.
There is none— Oh, but closer to such, the National Historical Commission and
Supreme Court! As between the two, the closest that any one can access with
ease in pragmatic sense is the latter. Jurisprudence tells hundreds of thousands
of history from society, culture, religion, government, politics, economy and
others which constitute the materials for Philippine history, not to mention the
aw-proof that accompanies it. This book therefore is primarily a study of
Philippine yesteryears using Philippine Supreme Court jurisprudence, as one of
the shapers of Philippine History, penned by brilliant Justices who have the
opportune to experience it through documents submitted by actual individuals
who have rst-hand information on matters which we now call history. Just like
history, this humble document has its limitation— by fair means the historical
discussion in social, economic, political and governmental subjects are
bordered within the arm-stretched of Supreme Court jurisprudence and will not
touch on issues beyond such. As of this writing, this book is intended to be my
personal guide as a teacher of Philippine History at St. Nicolas College of
Business and Technology, or speci cally for my students only. It is not intended
to be a general reference for any teacher to be used as his curriculum standard
in teaching Philippine history, except in any enterprise whom he may nd useful
in any way it may serve him

The Author

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 10 June 2018

My sine qua non:

foremost

GOD Almighty

Karla Marie

Francesca Athena

Isaiah Socrates

Isaac Ignatius

Matthias Timothy

Selah Eliana

Thank you for allowing me to exercise my freedom of expression albeit this

compilation.

June 10, 2018

Maimpis

San Fernando, Pampanga

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I. ENLIGHTENMENT AND ITS OMINOUS CHALLENGES (Treaty of
Paris; Philippine Territory; Treaties and Constitutions; )

National Territory

Article 1 of the 1987 Constitution de nes the national territory of the Republic of the
Philippines; thus:

ARTICLE I- National Territory: The national territory comprises the Philippine

archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other
territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of
its terrestrial, uvial, and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed,
the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around,
between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their
breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.

What is a territory?

Territory is the xed portion of the surface of the earth inhabited by the people of
the state.1 Territory as an element of a state means an area over which a state
has effective control.

Territory includes:

Land

Maritime areas
(a) Territorial seas- 12 Nautical Miles from Baseline
(b) Contiguous zone- 24 Nautical Miles from Baseline
(c) Exclusive Economic Zone- 200 Nautical Miles from Baseline
(d) High seas- waters beyond territorial sea

Airspace
—Sovereignty over airspace extends only until where outerspace begins.
50 to 100 miles from earth.

Outerspace

1 Cruz, Philippine Political Law

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 Signi cance of Territory2

Control over territory is of the essence of a state (Las Palmas case).

Certain rights and authority are exercised within the state’s territory.

State’s sovereignty is over its:

1. Land territory (and airspace above it)
2. Internal Waters (and airspace above it and seabed under it)
3. Archipelagic Waters( and airspace above it and seabed under it)
4. Territorial Sea (and airspace above it and seabed under it)

The coastal state has a right against innocent passage3 in its internal
waters.

The coastal state exercises authority over the area (contiguous zone) to
the extent necessary to prevent infringement of customs, scal,
immigration or sanitation authority over its territorial waters or territory
and to punish such infringement.

The coastal state has rights over the economic resources of the sea,
seabed and subsoil.

Scope of Philippine National Territory De ned in Article I, Section 1.

It includes:
1. The Philippine archipelago
2. All other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or
jurisdiction;
3. The territorial sea, seabed, subsoil, insular shelves and other
submarine areas corresponding to (1) and (2).

Moreover, (1) and (2) consist of terrestrial, uvial and aerial domains.4

Territories Covered under the De nition of Article 1

1. Those ceded to the US by virtue of the Treaty of Paris on December 10,

1898.

2 Mangera Outline
3 Passage that is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal state.
4 Bernas Primer at 4 (2006 ed.)

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 2. Those de ned in the treaty concluded between the US and Spain (Treaty
of Washington) on November 7, 1900, which were not de ned in the
Treaty of Paris, speci cally the islands of Cagayan, Sulu and Sibuto.
3. Those de ned in the treaty concluded on January 2, 1930, between the
US and Great Britain (Treaty with Great Britain), speci cally the Turtle
and Mangsee islands.
4. The island of Batanes, which was covered under a general statement in
the 1935 Constitution.
5. Those contemplated in the phrase “belonging to the Philippines by historic
right or legal title” in the 1973 Constitution.5

“All other territories which the Philippines has sovereignty and jurisdiction.”

This includes any territory which presently belongs or might in the future
belong to the Philippines through any of the internationally modes of
acquiring territory (Batanes islands)

Those belonging to the Philippines by historic right or legal title (Sabah,

the Marianas, Freedomland)

Archipelagic Doctrine—archipelago is a body of water studded with islands.6

Archipelagic State—means a state constituted wholly by one or more

archipelagos and may include other islands. (Article 46 (a) of UNCLOS)

Archipelagic Waters

According to UNCLOS, Archipelagic waters refers to areas enclosed as

internal waters by using the baseline method which had not been
previously considered as internal waters. (See Article 53 of UNCLOS)

1. Article 8(2) of UNCLOS: Where the establishment of a straight

baseline in accordance with the method set forth in Article 7 has
the effect of enclosing as internal waters areas which had not
previously been considered as such, a right of innocent passage as
provided in this Convention shall exist in those waters.

2. According to UNCLOS, in “archipelagic waters”, a right of innocent

passage shall exist in these waters. But, the Philippines made a
reservation, thus, “ The concept of archipelagic waters is similar to
the concept of internal waters under the Constitution of the
Philippines, and removes straits connecting these waters with the

5 Cruz, Philippine Political Law, p. 18 (1995 ed).

6 Bernas Primer at 4 (2006 ed.)

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 economic zone or high sea from the rights of foreign vessel to
transit passage for international navigation.”
3. Bernas: The reservation is ad cautelam7. The claim made in the
Constitution took effect in 1973 before the 1982 Law of the Sea
Convention was formulated. Article 8(2) of the Convention itself
says that the new rule on archipelagic waters applies only to “areas
which had not previously been considered as” internal waters.8

b) Philippine Archipelago

(1) The Philippine archipelago is that body of water studded with islands
which is delineated in the Treaty of Paris, modi ed by the Treaty of
Washington and the Treaty of Great Britain.

c) Archipelagic Doctrine

(1) It is the principle whereby the body of water studded with islands, or
the islands surrounded with water, is viewed as a unity of islands and
waters together forming one integrated unit. For this purpose, it
requires that baselines be drawn by connecting the appropriate points
of the “outermost islands to encircle the islands within the archipelago.
We consider all the waters enclosed by the straight baselines as
internal waters.9

(2) Elements of Archipelagic Doctrine

(a) De nition of internal waters10

(b) The straight line method of delineating the territorial sea.

(3) Straight Baseline Method- drawn connecting selected points on the

coast without departing to any appreciable extent from the general
direction of the coast. RA 3046 and RA 5446 have drawn straight
baselines around the Philippines.

(a) (The problem with the straight baseline method is that it con icts
with the Law of the Sea because it recognizes the right of innocent
passage in archipelagic waters. That is why we made a

7 for security, as a precaution or to be on the safe side

8 Bernas Commentary, p 28(2003 ed).
9 Cruz, Philippine Political Law, p. 17 (1995 ed).
Internal waters refer to “all waters landwards from the baseline of the territory.”
10
Note: The Philippines considers all waters connecting the islands as internal waters.

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 reservation. However, as Bernas pointed out, the reservation is ad

cautelam)
(4) Purposes of Archipelagic Doctrine

(a) Territorial Integrity

(b) National Security

(c) Economic reasons

i) It is said that the purpose of archipelagic doctrine is to protect

the territorial integrity of the archipelago. Without it, there would
be “pockets of high seas” between some of our islands and
islets, thus foreign vessels would be able to pass through these
“pockets of seas” and would have no jurisdiction over them.

d) D. Archipelago Doctrine in Article I, Section 1

(1) “The waters around, between and connecting the islands of the
archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of
internal waters of the Philippines”

e) Differentiate archipelagic waters, territorial sea and internal waters.

(1) According to UNCLOS, Archipelagic waters refers to areas enclosed

as internal waters by using the baseline method which had not been
previously considered as internal waters. (See Article 53 of
UNCLOS)

(a) Territorial sea is an adjacent belt of sea with a breadth of 12

nautical miles measured from the baselines of a state and over
which the state has sovereignty. (Article 2, 3 of UNCLOS)

(b) Internal waters refer to “all waters landwards from the baseline of
the territory.” Is from which the breadth of territorial sea is
calculated. (Brownlie, Principles of PIL) No right of innocent
passage for foreign vessels exist in the case of internal waters.
(Harris, Cases and Material on International Law, 5th ed., 1998,
p.407)

(c) Under Section 1, Article I of the 1987 Constitution, the internal

waters of the Philippines consist of the waters around between and
connecting the islands of the Philippine archipelago regardless of
their breadth and dimensions including the waters in bays, rivers,
and lakes.

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 (2) Distinguish brie y but clearly between the contiguous zone and
the exclusive economic zone.

(a) Contiguous zone is a zone contiguous to the territorial sea and

extends up to twelve nautical miles from the territorial sea and over
which the coastal state may exercise control necessary to prevent
infringement of its customs, scal, immigration or sanitary laws and
regulations within its territory or territorial sea. (Article 33 of the
Convention on the Law of the Sea.)

(b) The EEZ extends 200 nautical miles from the baseline. The EEZ is
recognized in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although
it is not part of the national territory, exclusive economic bene t is
reserved for the country within the zone.

(c) By virtue of PD 1599, the Philippine declares that it has sovereign

rights to explore, exploit, conserve and manage the natural
resources of the seabed, subsoil, and superjacent waters. Other
states are prohibited from using the zone except for navigation and
over ight, laying of submarine cables and pipeline, and other lawful
uses related to navigation and communication.

B. The Philippine Bill of 1902

1. INTRODUCTION

a) The Peopling of the Archipelago, indigenous cultural minorities and their

right to ancestral land: An excerpt from the case of Cruz v. Secretary of
the Environment and Natural Resources, G.R. No. 135385, December 6,
2000

(1) How the indigenous peoples came to live in the Philippines goes back
to as early as 25,000 to 30,000 B.C.

(2) Before the time of Western contact, the Philippine archipelago was
peopled largely by the Negritos, Indonesians and Malays. The strains
11from these groups eventually gave rise to common cultural features

which became the dominant in uence in ethnic reformulation in the

archipelago. In uences from the Chinese and Indian civilizations in the

11 Breed

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 third or fourth millennium12 B.C. augmented these ethnic strains.
Chinese economic and socio-cultural in uences came by way of
Chinese porcelain, silk and traders. Indian in uence found their way
into the religious-cultural aspect of pre-colonial society.

(3) The ancient Filipinos settled beside bodies of water. Hunting and
food gathering became supplementary activities as reliance on them
was reduced by shing and the cultivation of the soil. From the
hinterland, coastal, and riverine communities, our ancestors evolved
an essentially homogeneous13 culture, a basically common way of life
where nature was a primary factor.

(4) Community life throughout the archipelago was in uenced by, and
responded to, common ecology. The generally benign tropical climate
and the largely uniform ora and fauna favored similarities, not
di erences. Life was essentially subsistence but not harsh. The early
Filipinos had a culture that was basically Malayan in structure and
form.

(5) They had languages that traced their origin to the Austronesian14
parent-stock and used them not only as media of daily
communication but also as vehicles for the expression of their literary
moods. They fashioned concepts and beliefs about the world that
they could not see, but which they sensed to be part of their lives.

(6) They had their own religion and religious beliefs. They believed in the
immortality of the soul and life after death. Their rituals were based on
beliefs in a ranking deity whom they called Bathalang Maykapal, and a
host of other deities, in the environmental spirits and in soul spirits.
The early Filipinos adored the sun, the moon, the animals and birds,
for they seemed to consider the objects of Nature as something to be
respected. They venerated almost any object that was close to their
daily life, indicating the importance of the relationship between man
and the object of nature.

(7) The unit of government was the "barangay," a term that derived its
meaning from the Malay word "balangay," meaning, a boat, which
transported them to these shores. The barangay was basically a
family-based community and consisted of thirty to one hundred
families. Each barangay was di erent and ruled by a chieftain called a

12 one thousand years

13 the same culture
14 relating to or denoting a family of languages spoken in an area extending from Madagascar
in the west to the Paci c Islands in the east.

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 "dato." It was the chieftain's duty to rule and govern his subjects and
promote their welfare and interests. A chieftain had wide powers for
he exercised all the functions of government. He was the executive,
legislator and judge and was the supreme commander in time of war.

(8) Laws were either customary or written. Customary laws were

handed down orally from generation to generation and
constituted the bulk of the laws of the barangay. They were
preserved in songs and chants and in the memory of the elder
persons in the community. The written laws were those that the
chieftain and his elders promulgated from time to time as the
necessity arose. The oldest known written body of laws was the
Maragtas Code by Datu Sumakwel at about 1250 A.D. Other old
codes are the Muslim Code of Luwaran and the Principal Code of
Sulu. Whether customary or written, the laws dealt with various
subjects, such as inheritance, divorce, usury, loans, partnership,
crime and punishment, property rights, family relations and adoption.
Whenever disputes arose, these were decided peacefully through a
court composed by the chieftain as "judge" and the barangay elders
as "jury." Con icts arising between subjects of di erent barangays
were resolved by arbitration in which a board composed of elders
from neutral barangays acted as arbiters.

(9) Baranganic society had a distinguishing feature: the absence of

private property in land. The chiefs merely administered the lands in
the name of the barangay. The social order was an extension of the
family with chiefs embodying the higher unity of the community. Each
individual, therefore, participated in the community ownership of the
soil and the instruments of production as a member of the barangay.
This ancient communalism was practiced in accordance with the
concept of mutual sharing of resources so that no individual,
regardless of status, was without sustenance. Ownership of land
was non-existent or unimportant and the right of usufruct was
what regulated the development of lands. Marine resources and
shing grounds were likewise free to all. Coastal communities
depended for their economic welfare on the kind of shing sharing
concept similar to those in land communities. Recognized leaders,
such as the chieftains and elders, by virtue of their positions of
importance, enjoyed some economic privileges and bene ts. But their
rights, related to either land and sea, were subject to their
responsibility to protect the communities from danger and to provide
them with the leadership and means of survival.

(10)Sometime in the 13th century, Islam was introduced to the

archipelago in Maguindanao. The Sultanate of Sulu was established

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 and claimed jurisdiction over territorial areas represented today by
Tawi-tawi, Sulu, Palawan, Basilan and Zamboanga. Four ethnic
groups were within this jurisdiction: Sama, Tausug, Yakan and
Subanon.

(a) The Sultanate of Maguindanao spread out from Cotabato toward

Maranao territory, now Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur. The
Muslim societies evolved an Asiatic form of feudalism where
land was still held in common but was private in use. This is
clearly indicated in the Muslim Code of Luwaran. The Code
contains a provision on the lease of cultivated lands. It, however,
has no provision for the acquisition, transfer, cession or sale of
land.

(11)The societies encountered by Magellan and Legaspi therefore were

primitive economies where most production was geared to the use of
the producers and to the ful llment of kinship obligations. They were
not economies geared to exchange and pro t. Moreover, the family
basis of barangay membership as well as of leadership and
governance worked to splinter15 the population of the islands into
numerous small and separate communities.

(12)When the Spaniards settled permanently in the Philippines in

156516, they found the Filipinos living in barangay settlements
scattered along water routes and river banks.

(a) One of the rst tasks imposed on the missionaries and the
encomenderos17 was to collect all scattered Filipinos together in a
reduccion18. As early as 1551, the Spanish government assumed
an unvarying solicitous19 attitude towards the natives. The
Spaniards regarded it a sacred "duty to conscience and humanity
to civilize these less fortunate people living in the obscurity of
ignorance" and to accord them the "moral and material
advantages" of community life and the "protection and vigilance
a orded them by the same laws.”

15 broken
16 Philippines was discovered on March 17, 1521
17Labor system where conquerors were rewarded with the labor of particular groups of
conquered subjects.
18 Congregation where people are forcibly grouped into settlements which soon became models
for towns, provinces etc..
19 concern

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 (b) The Spanish missionaries were ordered to establish pueblos where
the church and convent would be constructed. All the new
Christian converts were required to construct their houses around
the church and the unbaptized were invited to do the same. With
the reduccion, the Spaniards attempted to "tame" the reluctant
Filipinos through Christian indoctrination using the convento/casa
real/plaza complex as focal point.

(c) The reduccion, to the Spaniards, was a "civilizing" device to make

the Filipinos law-abiding citizens of the Spanish Crown, and in the
long run, to make them ultimately adopt Hispanic culture and
civilization.

(d) All lands lost by the old barangays in the process of pueblo
organization as well as all lands not assigned to them and the
pueblos, were now declared to be crown lands or realengas,
belonging to the Spanish king. It was from the realengas that land
grants were made to non-Filipinos. The abrogation of the Filipinos'
ancestral rights in land and the introduction of the concept of
public domain were the most immediate fundamental results of
Spanish colonial theory and law.

(e) The concept that the Spanish king was the owner of everything of
value in the Indies or colonies was imposed on the natives, and the
natives were stripped of their ancestral rights to land. Increasing
their foothold in the Philippines, the Spanish colonialists, civil and
religious, classi ed the Filipinos according to their religious
practices and beliefs, and divided them into three types. First were
the Indios, the Christianized Filipinos, who generally came from
the lowland populations. Second, were the Moros or the Muslim
communities, and third, were the in eles or the indigenous
communities.

(f) The Indio was a product of the advent of Spanish culture. This
class was favored by the Spaniards and was allowed certain status
although below the Spaniards. The Moros and in eles were
regarded as the lowest classes. The Moros and in eles resisted
Spanish rule and Christianity. The Moros were driven from Manila
and the Visayas to Mindanao; while the in eles, to the
hinterlands. The Spaniards did not pursue them into the deep
interior. The upland societies were naturally outside the immediate
concern of Spanish interest, and the cli s and forests of the
hinterlands were di cult and inaccessible, allowing the in eles, in
e ect, relative security. Thus, the in eles, which were peripheral to

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 colonial administration, were not only able to preserve their own
culture but also thwarted the Christianization process, separating
themselves from the newly evolved Christian community. Their
own political, economic and social systems were kept constantly
alive and vibrant.

(g) The pro-Christian or pro-Indio attitude of colonialism brought

about a generally mutual feeling of suspicion, fear, and hostility
between the Christians on the one hand and the non-Christians on
the other. Colonialism tended to divide and rule an otherwise
culturally and historically related populace through a colonial
system that exploited both the virtues and vices of the Filipinos.

(13)President McKinley20, in his instructions to the Philippine Commission

of April 7, 1900, addressed the existence of the in eles:

(a) "In dealing with the uncivilized tribes of the Islands, the
Commission should adopt the same course followed by
Congress in permitting the tribes of our North American
Indians to maintain their tribal organization and government,
and under which many of those tribes are now living in peace and
contentment, surrounded by civilization to which they are unable or
unwilling to conform. Such tribal government should, however, be
subjected to wise and rm regulation; and, without undue or petty
interference, constant and active e ort should be exercised to
prevent barbarous practices and introduce civilized customs.”

(b) Placed in an alternative of either letting the natives alone or guiding

them in the path of civilization, the American government chose "to
adopt the latter measure as one more in accord with humanity and
with the national conscience.”

(c) The Americans classi ed the Filipinos into two: the Christian
Filipinos and the non-Christian Filipinos.

i) The term "non-Christian" referred not to religious belief, but to a

geographical area, and more directly, "to natives of the
Philippine Islands of a low grade of civilization, usually living in
tribal relationship apart from settled communities.” Like the
Spaniards, the Americans pursued a policy of assimilation.

20 William Mc Kinley

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 (d) In 1903, they passed Act No. 253 creating the Bureau of Non-
Christian Tribes (BNCT). Under the Department of the Interior, the
BNCT's primary task was to conduct ethnographic research
among unhispanized Filipinos, including those in Muslim
Mindanao, with a "special view to determining the most
practicable means for bringing about their advancement in
civilization and prosperity."

(e) The BNCT was modeled after the bureau dealing with
American Indians. The agency took a keen anthropological
interest in Philippine cultural minorities and produced a wealth of
valuable materials about them.

(14)The 1935 Constitution did not carry any policy on the non-Christian
Filipinos. The raging issue then was the conservation of the national
patrimony for the Filipinos.

(15)In 1957, the Philippine Congress passed R.A. No. 1888, an "Act to
e ectuate in a more rapid and complete manner the economic, social,
moral and political advancement of the non-Christian Filipinos or
national cultural minorities and to render real, complete, and
permanent the integration of all said national cultural minorities into
the body politic, creating the Commission on National Integration
charged with said functions."

(16)The law called for a policy of integration of indigenous peoples into

the Philippine mainstream and for this purpose created the
Commission on National Integration (CNI).

(a) The CNI was given, more or less, the same task as the BNCT
during the American regime. The post-independence policy of
integration was like the colonial policy of assimilation
understood in the context of a guardian-ward relationship. The
policy of assimilation and integration did not yield the desired
result. Like the Spaniards and Americans, government attempts at
integration met with erce resistance.

(17)Since World War II, a tidal wave of Christian settlers from the lowlands
of Luzon and the Visayas swamped the highlands and wide open
spaces in Mindanao. Knowledge by the settlers of the Public Land
Acts and the Torrens system resulted in the titling of several ancestral
lands in the settlers' names. With government initiative and
participation, this titling displaced several indigenous peoples from
their lands. Worse, these peoples were also displaced by projects

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 undertaken by the national government in the name of national
development.

(18)It was in the 1973 Constitution that the State adopted the following
provision:

(a) "The State shall consider the customs, traditions, beliefs, and
interests of national cultural communities in the formulation and
implementation of State policies.”

(19)For the rst time in Philippine history, the "non-Christian tribes"

or the "cultural minorities" were addressed by the highest law of
the Republic, and they were referred to as "cultural communities."
More importantly this time, their "uncivilized" culture was given some
recognition and their "customs, traditions, beliefs and interests" were
to be considered by the State in the formulation and implementation
of State policies.

(20)President Marcos abolished the CNI and transferred its functions to

the Presidential Adviser on National Minorities (PANAMIN).

(a) The PANAMIN was tasked to integrate the ethnic groups that
sought full integration into the larger community, and at the same
time "protect the rights of those who wish to preserve their original
lifeways beside the larger community.”

(21)In short, while still adopting the integration policy, the decree
recognized the right of tribal Filipinos to preserve their way of life.

(22)In 1974, President Marcos promulgated P.D. No. 410, otherwise

known as the Ancestral Lands Decree.

(a) The decree provided for the issuance of land occupancy

certi cates to members of the national cultural communities who
were given up to 1984 to register their claims.

(23)In 1979, the Commission on the Settlement of Land Problems was

created under E.O. No. 561 which provided a mechanism for the
expeditious resolution of land problems involving small settlers,
landowners, and tribal Filipinos.

(24)Despite the promulgation of these laws, from 1974 to the early 1980's,
some 100,000 Kalingas and Bontoks of the Cordillera region were

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 displaced by the Chico River dam project of the National Power
Corporation (NPC).

(25)The Manobos of Bukidnon saw their land bulldozed by the Bukidnon

Sugar Industries Company (BUSCO).

(26)In Agusan del Sur, the National Development Company was

authorized by law in 1979 to take approximately 40,550 hectares of
land that later became the NDC-Guthrie plantation in Agusan del Sur.
Most of the land was possessed by the Agusan natives.

(27)Timber concessions, water projects, plantations, mining, and cattle

ranching and other projects of the national government led not only to
the eviction of the indigenous peoples from their land but also to the
reduction and destruction of their natural environment.

(28)The Aquino government signi ed a total shift from the policy of

integration to one of preservation. Invoking her powers under the
Freedom Constitution, President Aquino created the O ce of Muslim
A airs, O ce for Northern Cultural Communities and the O ce for
Southern Cultural Communities all under the O ce of the President.

(29)The 1987 Constitution carries at least six (6) provisions which insure
the right of tribal Filipinos to preserve their way of life.

(a) This Constitution goes further than the 1973 Constitution by

expressly guaranteeing the rights of tribal Filipinos to their
ancestral domains and ancestral lands. By recognizing their right
to their ancestral lands and domains, the State has e ectively
upheld their right to live in a culture distinctly their own.

(30)Their Concept of Land

(a) Indigenous peoples share distinctive traits that set them apart
from the Filipino mainstream. They are non-Christians. They live in
less accessible, marginal, mostly upland areas. They have a
system of self-government not dependent upon the laws of the
central administration of the Republic of the Philippines. They
follow ways of life and customs that are perceived as di erent from
those of the rest of the population. The kind of response the
indigenous peoples chose to deal with colonial threat worked well
to their advantage by making it di cult for Western concepts and
religion to erode their customs and traditions.

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 (b) The "in eles societies" which had become peripheral21 to colonial
administration, represented, from a cultural perspective, a much
older base of archipelagic culture.

(c) The political systems were still structured on the patriarchal and
kinship oriented arrangement of power and authority. The
economic activities were governed by the concepts of an ancient
communalism and mutual help. The social structure which
emphasized division of labor and distinction of functions, not
status, was maintained.

(d) The cultural styles and forms of life portraying the varieties of
social courtesies and ecological adjustments were kept constantly
vibrant.

(e) Land is the central element of the indigenous peoples'

existence. There is no traditional concept of permanent, individual,
land ownership.

(f) Among the Igorots, ownership of land more accurately applies to

the tribal right to use the land or to territorial control. The people
are the secondary owners or stewards of the land and that if a
member of the tribe ceases to work, he loses his claim of
ownership, and the land reverts to the beings of the spirit world
who are its true and primary owners.

(g) Under the concept of "trusteeship," the right to possess the land
does not only belong to the present generation but the future ones
as well.

(h) Customary law on land rests on the traditional belief that no one
owns the land except the gods and spirits, and that those who
work the land are its mere stewards. Customary law has a strong
preference for communal ownership, which could either be
ownership by a group of individuals or families who are related by
blood or by marriage, or ownership by residents of the same
locality who may not be related by blood or marriage.

(i) The system of communal ownership under customary laws draws

its meaning from the subsistence and highly collectivized mode of
economic production. The Kalingas, for instance, who are engaged
in team occupation like hunting, foraging for forest products, and

21 of minor importance; secondary

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 swidden22 farming found it natural that forest areas, swidden
farms, orchards, pasture and burial grounds should be
communally-owned.

(j) For the Kalingas, everybody has a common right to a common

economic base. Thus, as a rule, rights and obligations to the land
are shared in common. Although highly bent on communal
ownership, customary law on land also sanctions individual
ownership. The residential lots and terrace rice farms are
governed by a limited system of individual ownership. It is
limited because while the individual owner has the right to use and
dispose of the property, he does not possess all the rights of an
exclusive and full owner as de ned under our Civil Code. Under
Kalinga customary law, the alienation of individually-owned land is
strongly discouraged except in marriage and succession and
except to meet sudden nancial needs due to sickness, death in
the family, or loss of crops. Moreover, and to be alienated should
rst be o ered to a clan-member before any village-member can
purchase it, and in no case may land be sold to a non-member of
the ili.

(k) Land titles do not exist in the indigenous peoples' economic and
social system. The concept of individual land ownership under the
civil law is alien to them. Inherently colonial in origin, our national
land laws and governmental policies frown upon indigenous claims
to ancestral lands. Communal ownership is looked upon as inferior,
if not inexistent.

2. Who is a Filipino citizen?

a) The above discussion is a discourse meant to establish the facts on how

the early Filipino ancestors came to be, live as far as society, culture,
government, and their religious beliefs are concerned. It is also instructive
on how the current issue of ancestral land ownership and its impact in
Philippine setting vis-a-vis the economic exploitation of our natural
resources. Let us now discuss who is a Filipino.

3. The Philippine Bill of 1902 on Philippine Citizenship (This discussion is based

on the case of Tecson v. COMELEC, March 3, 2004 and penned by the
esteemed Justice Jose Vitug)

22 an area of land cleared for farming

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 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Perhaps, the earliest understanding of citizenship was that given by Aristotle,

who, sometime in 384 to 322 B.C., described the "citizen" to refer to a man
who shared in the administration of justice and in the holding of an o ce.
Aristotle saw its signi cance if only to determine the constituency of the
"State," which he described as being composed of such persons who would be
adequate in number to achieve a self-su cient existence.

The concept grew to include one who would both govern and be governed, for
which quali cations like autonomy, judgment and loyalty could be expected.

Citizenship was seen to deal with rights and entitlements, on the one hand, and
with concomitant obligations, on the other. In its ideal setting, a citizen was
active in public life and fundamentally willing to submit his private interests to
the general interest of society.

The concept of citizenship had undergone changes over the centuries. In the
18th century, the concept was limited, by and large, to civil citizenship, which
established the rights necessary for individual freedom, such as rights to
property, personal liberty and justice.

Its meaning expanded during the 19th century to include political citizenship,
which encompassed the right to participate in the exercise of political power.

The 20th century saw the next stage of the development of social citizenship,
which laid emphasis on the right of the citizen to economic well-being and
social security.

The idea of citizenship has gained expression in the modern welfare state as it
so developed in Western Europe. An ongoing and nal stage of development, in
keeping with the rapidly shrinking global village, might well be the
internationalization of citizenship.

The Local Setting - from Spanish Times to the Present

There was no such term as "Philippine citizens" during the Spanish regime but
"subjects of Spain" or "Spanish subjects."

In church records, the natives were called 'indios', denoting a low regard for the
inhabitants of the archipelago.

Spanish laws on citizenship became highly codi ed during the 19th century but
their sheer number made it di cult to point to one comprehensive law.

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 Not all of these citizenship laws of Spain however, were made to apply to the
Philippine Islands except for those explicitly extended by Royal Decrees.

Spanish laws on citizenship were traced back to the Novisima Recopilacion,

promulgated in Spain on 16 July 1805 but as to whether the law was extended
to the Philippines remained to be the subject of di ering views among experts;
however, three royal decrees were undisputably made applicable to Spaniards
in the Philippines - the Order de la Regencia of 14 August 1841, the Royal
Decree of 23 August 1868 speci cally de ning the political status of children
born in the Philippine Islands, and nally, the Ley Extranjera de Ultramar of 04
July 1870, which was expressly made applicable to the Philippines by the Royal
Decree of 13 July 1870.

The Spanish Constitution of 1876 was never extended to the Philippine Islands
because of the express mandate of its Article 89, according to which the
provisions of the Ultramar among which this country was included, would be
governed by special laws.

It was only the Civil Code of Spain, made e ective in this jurisdiction on 18
December 1889, which came out with the rst categorical enumeration of who
were Spanish citizens. -

"(a) Persons born in Spanish territory,

"(b) Children of a Spanish father or mother, even if they were born outside of
Spain,

"(c) Foreigners who have obtained naturalization papers,

"(d) Those who, without such papers, may have become domiciled s t na t i bahn
of any town of the Monarchy.”

The year 1898 was another turning point in Philippine history.

Already in the state of decline as a superpower, Spain was forced to so cede her sole
colony in the East to an upcoming world power, the United States.

An accepted principle of international law dictated that a change in sovereignty,

resulting in an abrogation of all political laws then in force, would have no e ect
on civil laws, which would remain virtually intact.

The Treaty of Paris was entered into on 10 December 1898 between Spain and the
United States. Under Article IX of the treaty, the civil rights and political status of the
native inhabitants of the territories ceded to the United States would be determined by
its Congress -

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 "Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory over which
Spain by the present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty may remain in
such territory or may remove therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of
property, including the right to sell or dispose of such property or of its
proceeds; and they shall also have the right to carry on their industry,
commerce, and professions, being subject in respect thereof to such laws as
are applicable to foreigners. In case they remain in the territory they may
preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making, before a court
of record, within a year from the date of the exchange of rati cations of
this treaty, a declaration of their decision to preserve such allegiance; in
default of which declaration they shall be held to have renounced it and to have
adopted the nationality of the territory in which they reside.

Thus –

"The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories
hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.”

Upon the rati cation of the treaty, and pending legislation by the United States
Congress on the subject, the native inhabitants of the Philippines ceased to be Spanish
subjects. Although they did not become American citizens, they, however, also ceased
to be "aliens" under American laws and were thus issued passports describing them to
be citizens of the Philippines entitled to the protection of the United States.

The term "citizens of the Philippine Islands" appeared for the rst time in the Philippine
Bill of 1902, also commonly referred to as the Philippine Organic Act of 1902, the rst
comprehensive legislation of the Congress of the United States on the Philippines -

".... that all inhabitants of the Philippine Islands continuing to reside therein, who
were Spanish subjects on the 11th day of April, 1899, and then resided in said
Islands, and their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held
to be citizens of the Philippine Islands and as such entitled to the protection of
the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance
to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace
between the United States and Spain, signed at Paris, December tenth eighteen
hundred and ninety eight.

Under the organic act, a "citizen of the Philippines" was one who was an inhabitant of
the Philippines, and a Spanish subject on the 11th day of April 1899.

The term "inhabitant" was taken to include:

1. a native-born inhabitant

2. an inhabitant who was a native of Peninsular Spain, and

3. an inhabitant who obtained Spanish papers on or before 11 April 1899.

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 Controversy arose on to the status of children born in the Philippines from 11 April
1899 to 01 July 1902, during which period no citizenship law was extant in the
Philippines.

Weight was given to the view, articulated in jurisprudential writing at the time, that the
common law principle of jus soli, otherwise also known as the principle of territoriality,
operative in the United States and England, governed those born in the Philippine
Archipelago within that period. xxx

In 23 March 1912, the Congress of the United States made the following amendment
to the Philippine Bill of 1902 -

"Provided, That the Philippine Legislature is hereby authorized to provide by law

for the acquisition of Philippine citizenship by those natives of the Philippine
Islands who do not come within the foregoing provisions, the natives of other
insular possession of the United States, and such other persons residing in the
Philippine Islands who would become citizens of the United States, under the
laws of the United States, if residing therein.”

With the adoption of the Philippine Bill of 1902, the concept of "Philippine citizens" had
for the rst time crystallized. The word "Filipino" was used by William H. Taft, the rst
Civil Governor General in the Philippines when he initially made mention of it in his
slogan, "The Philippines for the Filipinos."

In 1916, the Philippine Autonomy Act, also known as the Jones Law restated
virtually the provisions of the Philippine Bill of 1902, as so amended by the Act of
Congress in 1912 -

"That all inhabitants of the Philippine Islands who were Spanish subjects on the
eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and then resided in
said Islands, and their children born subsequently thereto, shall be deemed and
held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands, except such as shall have elected to
preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the
provisions of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, signed
at Paris December tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight and except such
others as have since become citizens of some other country; Provided, That the
Philippine Legislature, herein provided for, is hereby authorized to provide for
the acquisition of Philippine citizenship by those natives of the Philippine Islands
who do not come within the foregoing provisions, the natives of the insular
possessions of the United States, and such other persons residing in the
Philippine Islands who are citizens of the United States, or who could become
citizens of the United States under the laws of the United States, if residing
therein.”

Under the Jones Law, a native-born inhabitant of the Philippines was deemed to be a
citizen of the Philippines as of 11 April 1899 if he was:

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 1. a subject of Spain on 11 April 1899

2. residing in the Philippines on said date, and,

3. since that date, not a citizen of some other country.

While there was, at one brief time, divergent views on whether or not jus soli was a
mode of acquiring citizenship, the 1935 Constitution brought to an end to any such link
with common law, by adopting, once and for all, jus sanguinis or blood relationship as
being the basis of Filipino citizenship -

"Section 1, Article III, 1935 Constitution. The following are citizens of the Philippines

(1) Those who are citizens of the Philippine Islands at the time of the adoption of this
Constitution

(2) Those born in the Philippines Islands of foreign parents who, before the adoption of
this Constitution, had been elected to public o ce in the Philippine Islands.

(3) Those whose fathers are citizens of the Philippines.

(4) Those whose mothers are citizens of the Philippines and upon reaching the age of
majority, elect Philippine citizenship.

(5) Those who are naturalized in accordance with law."

Subsection (4), Article III, of the 1935 Constitution, taken together with existing civil law
provisions at the time, which provided that women would automatically lose their
Filipino citizenship and acquire that of their foreign husbands, resulted in discriminatory
situations that e ectively incapacitated the women from transmitting their Filipino
citizenship to their legitimate children and required illegitimate children of Filipino
mothers to still elect Filipino citizenship upon reaching the age of majority.

Seeking to correct this anomaly, as well as fully cognizant of the newly found status of
Filipino women as equals to men, the framers of the 1973 Constitution crafted the
provisions of the new Constitution on citizenship to re ect such concerns -

"Section 1, Article III, 1973 Constitution - The following are citizens of the Philippines

(1) Those who are citizens of the Philippines at the time of the adoption of this
Constitution.

(2) Those whose fathers or mothers are citizens of the Philippines.

(3) Those who elect Philippine citizenship pursuant to the provisions of the
Constitution of nineteen hundred and thirty- ve.

(4) Those who are naturalized in accordance with law."

For good measure, Section 2 of the same article also further provided that –

"A female citizen of the Philippines who marries an alien retains her Philippine
citizenship, unless by her act or omission she is deemed, under the law to have
renounced her citizenship.”

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The 1987 Constitution generally adopted the provisions of the 1973 Constitution,
except for subsection (3) thereof that aimed to correct the irregular situation generated
by the questionable proviso in the 1935 Constitution.

Section I, Article IV, 1987 Constitution now provides:

"The following are citizens of the Philippines:

(1) Those who are citizens of the Philippines at the time of the adoption of this
Constitution.

(2) Those whose fathers or mothers are citizens of the Philippines.

(3) Those born before January 17, 1973 of Filipino mothers, who elect Philippine
citizenship upon reaching the age of majority; and

(4) Those who are naturalized in accordance with law."

The Case Of FPJ

Section 2, Article VII, of the 1987 Constitution expresses:

"No person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the

Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age
on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years
immediately preceding such election.”

The term "natural-born citizens," is de ned to include "those who are citizens of the
Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their
Philippine citizenship.”

The date, month and year of birth of FPJ appeared to be 20 August 1939 during the
regime of the 1935 Constitution. Through its history, four modes of acquiring
citizenship - naturalization, jus soli, res judicata and jus sanguinis– had been in vogue.

Only two, i.e., jus soli and jus sanguinis, could qualify a person to being a "natural-
born" citizen of the Philippines.

Jus soli, per Roa vs. Collector of Customs (1912), did not last long. With the adoption
of the 1935 Constitution and the reversal of Roa in Tan Chong vs. Secretary of Labor
(1947), jus sanguinis or blood relationship would now become the primary basis of
citizenship by birth.

Documentary evidence adduced by petitioner would tend to indicate that the earliest
established direct ascendant of FPJ was his paternal grandfather Lorenzo Pou, married
to Marta Reyes, the father of Allan F. Poe. While the record of birth of Lorenzo Pou had
not been presented in evidence, his death certi cate, however, identi ed him to be a
Filipino, a resident of San Carlos, Pangasinan, and 84 years old at the time of his death
on 11 September 1954.

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 The certi cate of birth of the father of FPJ, Allan F. Poe, showed that he was born on
17 May 1915 to an Español father, Lorenzo Pou, and a mestiza Español mother, Marta
Reyes. Introduced by petitioner was an "uncerti ed" copy of a supposed certi cate of
the alleged marriage of Allan F. Poe and Paulita Gomez on 05 July 1936.

The marriage certi cate of Allan F. Poe and Bessie Kelley re ected the date of their
marriage to be on 16 September 1940. In the same certi cate, Allan F. Poe was stated
to be twenty- ve years old, unmarried, and a Filipino citizen, and Bessie Kelley to be
twenty-two years old, unmarried, and an American citizen. The birth certi cate of FPJ,
would disclose that he was born on 20 August 1939 to Allan F. Poe, a Filipino, twenty-
four years old, married to Bessie Kelly, an American citizen, twenty-one years old and
married.

Considering the reservations made by the parties on the veracity of some of the entries
on the birth certi cate of respondent and the marriage certi cate of his parents, the
only conclusions that could be drawn with some degree of certainty from the
documents would be that -

1. The parents of FPJ were Allan F. Poe and Bessie Kelley;

2. FPJ was born to them on 20 August 1939;

3. Allan F. Poe and Bessie Kelley were married to each other on 16 September, 1940;

4. The father of Allan F. Poe was Lorenzo Poe; and

5. At the time of his death on 11 September 1954, Lorenzo Poe was 84 years old.

Would the above facts be su cient or insu cient to establish the fact that FPJ is a
natural-born Filipino citizen? The marriage certi cate of Allan F. Poe and Bessie Kelley,
the birth certi cate of FPJ, and the death certi cate of Lorenzo Pou are documents of
public record in the custody of a public o cer. The documents have been submitted in
evidence by both contending parties during the proceedings before the COMELEC.

The death certi cate of Lorenzo Pou would indicate that he died on 11 September
1954, at the age of 84 years, in San Carlos, Pangasinan. It could thus be assumed that
Lorenzo Pou was born sometime in the year 1870 when the Philippines was still a
colony of Spain. Petitioner would argue that Lorenzo Pou was not in the Philippines
during the crucial period of from 1898 to 1902 considering that there was no existing
record about such fact in the Records Management and Archives O ce. Petitioner,
however, likewise failed to show that Lorenzo Pou was at any other place during the
same period. In his death certi cate, the residence of Lorenzo Pou was stated to be
San Carlos, Pangasinan. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it should be
sound to conclude, or at least to presume, that the place of residence of a person at
the time of his death was also his residence before death. It would be extremely
doubtful if the Records Management and Archives O ce would have had complete
records of all residents of the Philippines from 1898 to 1902.

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The ruling of the Supreme Court therefore is that Lorenzo Pou, the grandfather of FPJ
is a Filipino citizen having availed presumably the grant of citizenship of Philippine Bill
of 1902.

C. American Regime: A Discussion on U.S. takeover of Spanish colonization

and its military bases, and the transition to Philippine independence
(Saguisag v. Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, G.R. No. 212426)

The presence of the U.S. military forces in the country can be traced to their pivotal
victory in the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War. Spain
relinquished its sovereignty over the Philippine Islands in favor of the U.S. upon its
formal surrender a few months later.

By 1899, the Americans had consolidated a military administration in the archipelago.

When it became clear that the American forces intended to impose colonial control
over the Philippine Islands, General Emilio Aguinaldo immediately led the Filipinos
into an all-out war against the U.S. The Filipinos were ultimately defeated in the
Philippine-American War, which lasted until 1902 and led to the downfall of the rst
Philippine Republic.

The Americans henceforth began to strengthen their foothold in the country. They took
over and expanded the former Spanish Naval Base in Subic Bay, Zambales, and put
up a cavalry post called Fort Stotsenberg in Pampanga, now known as Clark Air
Base.

When talks of the eventual independence of the Philippine Islands gained ground, the
U.S. manifested the desire to maintain military bases and armed forces in the
country. The U.S. Congress later enacted the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act of 193323,
which required that the proposed constitution of an independent Philippines recognize
the right of the U.S. to maintain the latter's armed forces and military bases. The
Philippine Legislature rejected that law, as it also gave the U.S. the power to
unilaterally designate any part of Philippine territory as a permanent military or naval
base of the U.S. within two years from complete independence.

The U.S. Legislature subsequently crafted another law called the Tydings-McDu e
Act or the Philippine Independence Act of 1934. Compared to the old Hare-Hawes-
Cutting Act, the new law provided for the surrender to the Commonwealth
Government of "all military and other reservations" of the U.S. government in the
Philippines, except "naval reservations and refueling stations.” Furthermore, the
law authorized the U.S. President to enter into negotiations for the adjustment and

23The Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act was authored by South Carolina Representative Butler Hare, Missouri
Senator Harry Bartow Hawes and New Mexico Senator Bronson M. Cutting.

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 settlement of all questions relating to naval reservations and fueling stations within two
years after the Philippines would have gained independence.

Under the Tydings-McDu e Act, the U.S. President would proclaim the American
withdrawal and surrender of sovereignty over the islands 10 years after the
inauguration of the new government in the Philippines. This law eventually led to
the promulgation of the 1935 Philippine Constitution.

The original plan to surrender the military bases changed.

At the height of the Second World War, the Philippine and the U.S. Legislatures each
passed resolutions authorizing their respective Presidents to negotiate the matter
of retaining military bases in the country after the planned withdrawal of the U.S.

Subsequently, in 1946, the countries entered into the Treaty of General Relations, in
which the U.S. relinquished all control and sovereignty over the Philippine Islands,
except the areas that would be covered by the American military bases in the
country. This treaty eventually led to the creation of the post-colonial legal regime on
which would hinge the continued presence of U.S. military forces until 1991: the
Military Bases Agreement (MBA) of 1947, the Military Assistance Agreement of 1947,
and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) of 1951.

Former legal regime on the presence of U.S. armed forces in the

territory of an independent Philippines (1946-1991)

Soon after the Philippines was granted independence, the two countries entered into
their rst military arrangement pursuant to the Treaty of General Relations - the 1947
MBA.

The Senate concurred on the premise of "mutuality of security interest,” which

provided for the presence and operation of U.S. military bases in the Philippines for 99
years or until the year 2046.

The treaty also obliged the Philippines to negotiate with the U.S. to allow the latter to
expand the existing bases or to acquire new ones as military necessity might require.

A number of signi cant amendments to the 1947 MBA were made.

With respect to its duration, the parties entered into the Ramos-Rusk Agreement of
1966, which reduced the term of the treaty from 99 years to a total of 44 years or until
1991.

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 Concerning the number of U.S. military bases in the country, the Bohlen-Serrano
Memorandum of Agreement provided for the return to the Philippines of 17 U.S.
military bases covering a total area of 117,075 hectares.

Twelve years later, the U.S. returned Sangley Point in Cavite City through an exchange
of notes. Then, through the Romulo-Murphy Exchange of Notes of 1979, the parties
agreed to the recognition of Philippine sovereignty over Clark and Subic Bases and
the reduction of the areas that could be used by the U.S. military.

The agreement also provided for the mandatory review of the treaty every ve years.

In 1983, the parties revised the 1947 MBA through the Romualdez-Armacost
Agreement. The revision pertained to the operational use of the military bases by the
U.S. government within the context of Philippine sovereignty, including the need for
prior consultation with the Philippine government on the former's use of the bases for
military combat operations or the establishment of long-range missiles.

Pursuant to the legislative authorization granted under Republic Act No. 9, the
President also entered into the 1947 Military Assistance Agreement with the U.S.
This executive agreement established the conditions under which U.S. military
assistance would be granted to the Philippines, particularly the provision of military
arms, ammunitions, supplies, equipment, vessels, services, and training for the latter's
defense forces. An exchange of notes in 1953 made it clear that the agreement would
remain in force until terminated by any of the parties.

To further strengthen their defense and security relationship, the Philippines and the
U.S. next entered into the MDT in 1951. Concurred in by both the Philippine and the
U.S. Senates, the treaty has two main features:

rst, it allowed for mutual assistance in maintaining and developing their

individual and collective capacities to resist an armed attack;62 and

second, it provided for their mutual self-defense in the event of an armed attack
against the territory of either party.

The treaty was premised on their recognition that an armed attack on either of them
would equally be a threat to the security of the other.

Current legal regime on the presence of U.S. armed forces in the

country

In view of the impending expiration of the 1947 MBA in 1991, the Philippines and the
U.S. negotiated for a possible renewal of their defense and security relationship.
Termed as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Security, the countries sought

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to recast their military ties by providing a new framework for their defense cooperation
and the use of Philippine installations. One of the proposed provisions included an
arrangement in which U.S. forces would be granted the use of certain installations
within the Philippine naval base in Subic. On 16 September 1991, the Senate rejected
the proposed treaty.

The consequent expiration of the 1947 MBA and the resulting paucity of any formal
agreement dealing with the treatment of U.S. personnel in the Philippines led to the
suspension in 1995 of large-scale joint military exercises. In the meantime, the
respective governments of the two countries agreed to hold joint exercises at a
substantially reduced level. The military arrangements between them were revived in
1999 when they concluded the first Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).

As a "reaffirm[ation] [of the] obligations under the MDT," the VFA has laid down the
regulatory mechanism for the treatment of U.S. military and civilian personnel visiting
the country. It contains provisions on the entry and departure of U.S. personnel; the
purpose, extent, and limitations of their activities; criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction;
the waiver of certain claims; the importation and exportation of equipment, materials,
supplies, and other pieces of property owned by the U.S. government; and the
movement of U.S. military vehicles, vessels, and aircraft into and within the country. The
Philippines and the U.S. also entered into a second counterpart agreement (VFA II),
which in turn regulated the treatment of Philippine military and civilian personnel visiting
the U.S. The Philippine Senate concurred in the first VFA on 27 May 1999.

Beginning in January 2002, U.S. military and civilian personnel started arriving in
Mindanao to take part in joint military exercises with their Filipino counterparts. Called
Balikatan, these exercises involved trainings aimed at simulating joint military
maneuvers pursuant to the MDT.

In the same year, the Philippines and the U.S. entered into the Mutual Logistics
Support Agreement to "further the interoperability, readiness, and effectiveness of their
respective military forces" in accordance with the MDT, the Military Assistance
Agreement of 1953, and the VFA.

The new agreement outlined the basic terms, conditions, and procedures for facilitating
the reciprocal provision of logistics support, supplies, and services between the military
forces of the two countries. The phrase "logistics support and services" includes
billeting, operations support, construction and use of temporary structures, and storage
services during an approved activity under the existing military arrangements.83

Already extended twice, the agreement will last until 2017.84

The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement

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 EDCA authorizes the U.S. military forces to have access to and conduct activities within
certain "Agreed Locations" in the country.

It was not transmitted to the Senate on the executive's understanding that to do so was
no longer necessary.

Accordingly, in June 2014, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the U.S.
Embassy exchanged diplomatic notes confirming the completion of all necessary
internal requirements for the agreement to enter into force in the two countries.

According to the Philippine government, the conclusion of EDCA was the result of
intensive and comprehensive negotiations in the course of almost two years.

After eight rounds of negotiations, the Secretary of National Defense and the U.S.
Ambassador to the Philippines signed the agreement on 28 April 2014.

President Benigno S. Aquino III ratified EDCA on 6 June 2014. The OSG clarified during
the oral arguments that the Philippine and the U.S. governments had yet to agree
formally on the specific sites of the Agreed Locations mentioned in the agreement.

D. Japanese Occupation (CO KIM CHAM (alias CO KIM CHAM vs.EUSEBIO

VALDEZ TAN KEH and ARSENIO P. DIZON, September 17, 1945, G.R. No. L-5)

REASON FOR THE INVASION:

1. xxx Japan, since its military forces occupied Manila, had waged an intensive
campaign propaganda, intended to destroy the faith of the Filipino people in
America, to wipe out all manifestations of American or occidental civilization,
to create interest in all things Japanese, which the imperial o cers tried to
present as the acme of oriental culture, and to arouse racial prejudice among
orientals and occidentals, to induce the Filipinos to rally to the cause of
Japan, which she tried to make us believe is the cause of the inhabitants of
all East Asia.

2. On January 2, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Forces occupied the City of

Manila, and on the next day their Commander in Chief proclaimed "the
Military Administration under law over the districts occupied by the Army."
In said proclamation, it was also provided that "so far as the Military
Administration permits, all the laws now in force in the Commonwealth,
as well as executive and judicial institutions, shall continue to be
e ective for the time being as in the past," and "all public o cials shall

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 remain in their present posts and carry on faithfully their duties as

before.”

3. A civil government or central administration organization under the name

of "Philippine Executive Commission was organized by Order No. 1 issued
on January 23, 1942, by the Commander in Chief of the Japanese Forces in
the Philippines, and Jorge B. Vargas, who was appointed Chairman thereof,
was instructed to proceed to the immediate coordination of the existing
central administrative organs and judicial courts, based upon what had
existed therefore, with approval of the said Commander in Chief, who was to
exercise jurisdiction over judicial courts.

4. The Chairman of the Executive Commission, as head of the central

administrative organization, issued Executive Orders Nos. 1 and 4, dated
January 30 and February 5, 1942, respectively, in which the Supreme Court,
Court of Appeals, Courts of First Instance, and the justices of the peace and
municipal courts under the Commonwealth were continued with the same
jurisdiction, in conformity with the instructions given to the said Chairman of
the Executive Commission by the Commander in Chief of Japanese Forces
in the Philippines in the latter's Order No. 3 of February 20, 1942, concerning
basic principles to be observed by the Philippine Executive Commission in
exercising legislative, executive and judicial powers.

5. Section 1 of said Order provided that "activities of the administration organs

and judicial courts in the Philippines shall be based upon the existing
statutes, orders, ordinances and customs. . . .”

6. On October 14, 1943, the so-called Republic of the Philippines was

inaugurated, but no substantial change was e ected thereby in the
organization and jurisdiction of the di erent courts that functioned during the
Philippine Executive Commission, and in the laws they administered and
enforced.

7. On October 23, 1944, a few days after the historic landing in Leyte, General
Douglas MacArthur issued a proclamation to the People of the Philippines
which declared:

8. THE OCTOBER PROCLAMATION

a) In October, 1944, the American Armed Forces of Liberation landed

successfully in Leyte.

b) When victory in islands was accomplished, after the most amazing and
spectacular war operations, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as a

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 commander in Chief of the American Army, decided to reestablish, in
behalf of the United States, the Commonwealth Government.

c) Then he was confronted with the question as to what policy to adopt in

regards to the o cial acts of the governments established in the
Philippines by the Japanese regime. He might have thought of
recognizing the validity of some of said acts, but, certainly, there were
acts which he should declare null and void, whether against the policies
of the American Government, whether inconsistent with military strategy
and operations, whether detrimental to the interests of the American or
Filipino peoples, whether for any other strong or valid reasons.

d) But, which to recognize, and which not? He was not in a position to

gather enough information for a safe basis to distinguished and classify
which acts must be nulli ed, and which must validated. At the same time
he had to take immediate action. More pressing military matters were
requiring his immediate attention. He followed the safe course: to nullify
all the legislative, executive, and judicial acts and processes under the
Japanese regime. After all, when the Commonwealth Government is
already functioning, with proper information, he will be in a position to
declare by law, through its Congress, which acts and processes must be
revived and validated in the public interest. So on October 23, 1944, the
Commander in Chief issued the following proclamation:

GENERAL HEADQUARTERS SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA OFFICE OF

THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF PROCLAMATION

To the People of the Philippines:

WHEREAS, the military forces under my command have landed in the

Philippines soil as a prelude to the liberation of the entire territory of the
Philippines; and

WHEREAS, the seat of the Government of the Commonwealth of the

Philippines has been re-established in the Philippines under President
Sergio Osmeña and the members of his cabinet; and

WHEREAS, under enemy duress, a so-called government styled as the

"Republic of the Philippines" was established on October 14, 1943,
based upon neither the free expression of the people's will nor the
sanction of the Government of the United States, and is purporting to
exercise Executive, Judicial and Legislative powers of government over
the people;

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 Now, therefore, I, Douglas MacArthur, General, United States Army, as
Commander in Chief of the military forces committed to the liberation of
the Philippines, do hereby proclaim and declare:

1. That the Government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines is, subject to

the supreme authority of the Government of the United States, the sole and
the only government having legal and valid jurisdiction over the people in
areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control;

2. The laws now existing on the statute books of the Commonwealth of the
Philippines and the regulation promulgated pursuant thereto are in full force
and e ect and legally binding upon the people in areas of the Philippines
free of enemy occupation and control; and

3. That all laws, regulations and processes of any other government in the
Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void and
without legal e ect in areas of the Philippines free enemy occupation and
control; and

I do hereby announce my purpose progressively to restore and extend to the

people of the Philippines the sacred right of government by constitutional
process under the regularly constituted Commonwealth Government as rapidly
as the several occupied areas are liberated to the military situation will
otherwise permit;

I do enjoin upon all loyal citizens of the Philippines full respect for and
obedience to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Philippines and the
laws, regulations and other acts of their duly constituted government whose
seat is now rmly re-established on Philippine soil.

October 23, 1944.

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

General U. S. Army 

Commander in Chief

e) That the Government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines is, subject

to the supreme authority of the Government of the United States, the sole
and only government having legal and valid jurisdiction over the people in
areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation and control;

f) That the laws now existing on the statute books of the Commonwealth of
the Philippines and the regulations promulgated pursuant thereto are in
full force and e ect and legally binding upon the people in areas of the
Philippines free of enemy occupation and control; and

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 g) That all laws, regulations and processes of any other government in the
Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are null and void and
without legal e ect in areas of the Philippines free of enemy occupation
and control.

h) xxx the proclamation of General MacArthur of October 23, 1944, which

declared that "all laws, regulations and processes of any other
government in the Philippines than that of the said Commonwealth are
null and void without legal e ect in areas of the Philippines free of enemy
occupation and control," has not invalidated the judicial acts and
proceedings, which are not a political complexion, of the courts of justice
in the Philippines that were continued by the Philippine Executive
Commission and the Republic of the Philippines during the Japanese
military occupation, and that said judicial acts and proceedings were
good and valid before and now good and valid after the reoccupation of
liberation of the Philippines by the American and Filipino forces.

9. On February 3, 1945, the City of Manila was partially liberated and on

February 27, 1945, General MacArthur, on behalf of the Government of the
United States, solemnly declared "the full powers and responsibilities under
the Constitution restored to the Commonwealth whose seat is here
established as provided by law."

E. The Philippine Constitution: History of its Revolution: (Separate Opinion of

Justice Puno in the case of Republic v. Sandiganbaysn: G.R. 104768; 2003)

1. During the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, Filipinos ardently fought

for their fundamental rights. The Propaganda Movement spearheaded by
our national hero Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, and Graciano Lopez-
Jaena demanded assimilation of the Philippines by Spain, and the
extension to Filipinos of rights enjoyed by Spaniards under the Spanish
Constitution such as the inviolability of person and property, speci cally
freedom from arbitrary action by o cialdom particularly by the Guardia Civil
and from arbitrary detention and banishment of citizens. They clamored for
their right to liberty of conscience, freedom of speech and the press,
freedom of association, freedom of worship, freedom to choose a profession,
the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and the right to
an opportunity for education. They raised the roof for an end to the abuses of
religious corporations.

2. With the Propaganda Movement having apparently failed to bring about

e ective reforms, Andres Bonifacio founded in 1892 the secret society of
the Katipunan to serve as the military arm of the secessionist movement
whose principal aim was to create an independent Filipino nation by armed

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 revolution. While preparing for separation from Spain, representatives of the
movement engaged in various constitutional projects that would re ect the
longings and aspirations of the Filipino people. On May 31, 1897, a
republican government was established in Biak-na-Bato, followed on
November 1, 1897 by the unanimous adoption of the Provisional Constitution
of the Republic of the Philippines, popularly known as the Constitution of
Biak-na-Bato, by the revolutions representatives. The document was an
almost exact copy of the Cuban Constitution of Jimaguayu, except for four
articles which its authors Felix Ferrer and Isabelo Artacho added. These four
articles formed the constitutions Bill of Rights and protected, among others,
religious liberty, the right of association, freedom of the press, freedom from
imprisonment except by virtue of an order issued by a competent court, and
freedom from deprivation of property or domicile except by virtue of
judgment passed by a competent court of authority.

3. The Biak-na-Bato Constitution was projected to have a life-span of two

years, after which a nal constitution would be drafted. Two months after it
was adopted, however, the Pact of Biak-na-Bato was signed whereby the
Filipino military leaders agreed to cease ghting against the Spaniards and
guaranteed peace for at least three years, in exchange for monetary
indemnity for the Filipino men in arms and for promised reforms. Likewise,
General Emilio Aguinaldo, who by then had become the military leader after
Bonifacios death, agreed to leave the Philippines with other Filipino leaders.
They left for Hongkong in December 1897.

4. A few months later, the Spanish-American war broke out in April 1898. Upon
encouragement of American o cials, Aguinaldo came back to the
Philippines and set up a temporary dictatorial government with himself as
dictator. In June 1898, the dictatorship was terminated and Aguinaldo
became the President of the Revolutionary Government. By this time, the
relations between the American troops and the Filipino forces had become
precarious as it became more evident that the Americans planned to stay. In
September 1898, the Revolutionary Congress was inaugurated whose
primary goal was to formulate and promulgate a Constitution. The fruit of
their e orts was the Malolos Constitution which, as admitted by Felipe
Calderon who drafted it, was based on the constitutions of South
American Republics while the Bill of Rights was substantially a copy of the
Spanish Constitution. The Bill of Rights included among others, freedom of
religion, freedom from arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, security of the
domicile and of papers and e ects against arbitrary searches and seizures,
inviolability of correspondence, due process in criminal prosecutions,
freedom of expression, freedom of association, and right of peaceful petition
for the redress of grievances. Its Article 28 stated that (t)he enumeration of
the rights granted in this title does not imply the prohibition of any others not
expressly stated. This suggests that natural law was the source of these

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 rights. The Malolos Constitution was short-lived. It went into e ect in January
1899, about two months before the rati cation of the Treaty of Paris
transferring sovereignty over the Islands to the United States. Within a
month after the constitutions promulgation, war with the United States
began and the Republic survived for only about ten months.

5. On March 23, 1901, American forces captured Aguinaldo and a week

later, he took his oath of allegiance to the United States.

6. In the early months of the war against the United States, American President
McKinley sent the First Philippine Commission headed by Jacob Gould
Schurman to assess the Philippine situation. On February 2, 1900, in its
report to the President, the Commission stated that the Filipino people
wanted above all a guarantee of those fundamental human rights which
Americans hold to be the natural and inalienable birthright of the
individual but which under Spanish domination in the Philippines had
been shamefully invaded and ruthlessly trampled upon. (emphasis
supplied) In response to this, President McKinley, in his Instruction of April 7,
1900 to the Second Philippine Commission, provided an authorization and
guide for the establishment of a civil government in the Philippines and
stated that (u)pon every division and branch of the government of the
Philippines . . . must be imposed these inviolable rules . . . These inviolable
rules were almost literal reproductions of the First to Ninth and the Thirteenth
Amendment of the United States Constitution, with the addition of the
prohibition of bills of attainder and ex post facto laws in Article 1, Section 9
of said Constitution. The inviolable rules or Bill of Rights provided, among
others, that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without
due process of law; that no person shall be twice put in jeopardy for the
same o ense or be compelled to be a witness against himself; that the right
to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be
violated; that no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech or of
the press or of the rights of the people to peaceably assemble and petition
the Government for redress of grievances. Scholars have characterized the
Instruction as the Magna Carta of the Philippines and as a worthy rival of the
Laws of the Indies.

7. The inviolable rules of the Instruction were re-enacted almost exactly in the
Philippine Bill of 1902, an act which temporarily provided for the
administration of the a airs of the civil government in the Philippine Islands,
and in the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916, otherwise known as the Jones
Law, which was an act to declare the purpose of the people of the United
States as to the future of the Philippine Islands and to provide an
autonomous government for it. These three organic acts - the Instruction, the
Philippine Bill of 1902, and the Jones Law - extended the guarantees of the
American Bill of Rights to the Philippines. In Kepner v. United States,

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 Justice Day prescribed the methodology for applying these inviolable rules to
the Philippines, viz: (t)hese principles were not taken from the Spanish law;
they were carefully collated from our own Constitution, and embody almost
verbatim the safeguards of that instrument for the protection of life and
liberty. Thus, the inviolable rules should be applied in the sense which
has been placed upon them in construing the instrument from which
they were taken. (emphasis supplied)

8. Thereafter, the Philippine Independence Law, popularly known as the

Tydings-McDu e Law of 1934, was enacted. It guaranteed independence
to the Philippines and authorized the drafting of a Philippine Constitution.
The law provided that the government should be republican in form and the
Constitution to be drafted should contain a Bill of Rights. Thus, the
Constitutional Convention of 1934 was convened. In drafting the
Constitution, the Convention preferred to be generally conservative on the
belief that to be stable and permanent, the Constitution must be anchored on
the experience of the people, providing for institutions which were the natural
outgrowths of the national life. As the people already had a political
organization buttressed by national traditions, the Constitution was to
sanctify these institutions tested by time and the Filipino peoples experience
and to con rm the practical and substantial rights of the people. Thus, the
institutions and philosophy adopted in the Constitution drew substantially
from the organic acts which had governed the Filipinos for more than thirty
years, more particularly the Jones Law of 1916. In the absence of Philippine
precedents, the Convention considered precedents of American origin that
might be suitable to our substantially American political system and to the
Filipino psychology and traditions. Thus, in the words of Claro M. Recto,
President of the Constitutional Convention, the 1935 Constitution was frankly
an imitation of the American charter.

9. Aside from the heavy American in uence, the Constitution also bore traces of
the Malolos Constitution, the German Constitution, the Constitution of the
Republic of Spain, the Mexican Constitution, and the Constitutions of several
South American countries, and the English unwritten constitution. Though
the Tydings-McDu e law mandated a republican constitution and the
inclusion of a Bill of Rights, with or without such mandate, the Constitution
would have nevertheless been republican because the Filipinos were
satis ed with their experience of a republican government; a Bill of Rights
would have nonetheless been also included because the people had been
accustomed to the role of a Bill of Rights in the past organic acts.

10. The Bill of Rights in the 1935 Constitution was reproduced largely from the
report of the Conventions committee on bill of rights. The report was mostly
a copy of the Bill of Rights in the Jones Law, which in turn was borrowed
from the American constitution. Other provisions in the report drew from the

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 Malolos Constitution and the constitutions of the Republic of Spain, Italy and
Japan. There was a conscious e ort to retain the phraseology of the well-
known provisions of the Jones Law because of the jurisprudence that had
built around them. The Convention insistently avoided including provisions in
the Bill of Rights not tested in the Filipino experience. Thus, upon submission
of its draft bill of rights to the President of the Convention, the committee on
bill of rights stated:

a) Adoption and adaptation have been the relatively facile work of your
committee in the formulation of a bill or declaration of rights to be
incorporated in the Constitution of the Philippine Islands. No attempt has
been made to incorporate new or radical changes. . .

b) The enumeration of individual rights in the present organic law (Acts of

Congress of July 1, 1902, August 29, 1916) is considered ample,
comprehensive and precise enough to safeguard the rights and
immunities of Filipino citizens against abuses or encroachments of the
Government, its powers or agents. . .Modi cations or changes in
phraseology have been avoided, wherever possible. This is because the
principles must remain couched in a language expressive of their
historical background, nature, extent and limitations, as construed and
expounded by the great statesmen and jurists that have vitalized them.
(emphasis supplied)

11. The 1935 Constitution was approved by the Convention on February 8, 1935
and signed on February 19, 1935. On March 23, 1935, United States
President Roosevelt a xed his signature on the Constitution. By an
overwhelming majority, the Filipino voters rati ed it on May 14, 1935.

12. Then dawned the decade of the 60s. There grew a clamor to revise the 1935
charter for it to be more responsive to the problems of the country,
speci cally in the socio-economic arena and to the sources of threats to the
security of the Republic identi ed by then President Marcos. In 1970,
delegates to the Constitution Convention were elected, and they convened
on June 1, 1971. In their deliberations, the spirit of moderation prevailed, and
the . . . Constitution was hardly notable for its novelty, much less a radical
departure from our constitutional tradition. Our rights in the 1935
Constitution were rea rmed and the government to which we have been
accustomed was instituted, albeit taking on a parliamentary rather than
presidential form.

13. The Bill of Rights in the 1973 Constitution had minimal di erence from its
counterpart in the 1935 Constitution. Previously, there were 21 paragraphs in
one section, now there were twenty-three. The two rights added were the
recognition of the peoples right to access to o cial records and documents
and the right to speedy disposition of cases. To the right against

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 unreasonable searches and seizures, a second paragraph was added that
evidence obtained therefrom shall be inadmissible for any purpose in any
proceeding.

14. The 1973 Constitution went into e ect on January 17, 1973 and remained
the fundamental law until President Corazon Aquino rose to power in
de ance of the 1973 charter and upon the direct exercise of the power of the
Filipino people in the EDSA Revolution of February 23-25, 1986. On February
25, 1986, she issued Proclamation No. 1 recognizing that sovereignty resides
in the people and all government authority emanates from them and that she
and Vice President Salvador Laurel were taking power in the name and by
the will of the Filipino people. The old legal order, constitution and
enactments alike, was overthrown by the new administration. A month
thenceforth, President Aquino issued Proclamation No. 3, Declaring National
Policy to Implement the Reforms Mandated by the People, Protecting their
Basic Rights, Adopting a Provisional Constitution, and Providing for an
Orderly Transition to Government under a New Constitution. The Provisional
Constitution, otherwise known as the Freedom Constitution adopted certain
provisions of the 1973 Constitution, including the Bill of Rights which was
adopted in toto, and provided for the adoption of a new constitution within
60 days from the date of Proclamation No. 3.

15. Pursuant to the Freedom Constitution, the 1986 Constitutional Commission

drafted the 1987 Constitution which was rati ed and became e ective on
February 2, 1987. As in the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions, it retained a
republican system of government, but emphasized and created more
channels for the exercise of the sovereignty of the people through recall,
initiative, referendum and plebiscite. Because of the wide-scale violation of
human rights during the dictatorship, the 1987 Constitution contains a Bill of
Rights which more jealously safeguards the peoples fundamental liberties in
the essence of a constitutional democracy, in the words of ConCom delegate
Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. It declares in its state policies that (t)he state values
the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human
rights. In addition, it has a separate Article on Social Justice and Human
Rights, under which, the Commission on Human Rights was created.

16. Considering the American model and origin of the Philippine constitution, it is
not surprising that Filipino jurists and legal scholars de ne and explain the
nature of the Philippine constitution in similar terms that American
constitutional law scholars explain their constitution.

F. Martial Law:

1. Separate Opinion of Justice Castro IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR

HABEAS CORPUS OF BENIGNO S. AQUINO, JR., RAMON MITRA, JR.,

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 FRANCISCO RODRIGO, AND NAPOLEON RAMA vs. HON JUAN PONCE
ENRILE, SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE; GEN. ROMEO ESPINO,
CHIEF OF STAFF, ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES; AND GEN. FIDEL
V. RAMOS, CHIEF, PHILIPPINE CONSTABULARY, G.R. No. L-35546
September 17, 1974

a) In Proclamation 1081, dated September 21, 1972, the President of the

Philippines declared that lawless elements, supported by a foreign power,
were in "armed insurrection and rebellion against the Government of the
Philippines in order to forcibly seize political and state power, overthrow
the duly constituted government and supplant our existing political,
social, economic and legal order with an entirely new one ... based on the
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist teachings and beliefs." He enumerated many and
varied acts of violence committed in pursuance of the insurrection and
rebellion. `He therefore placed the Philippines under martial law,
commanded the armed forces to suppress the insurrection and rebellion,
enforce obedience to his decrees, orders and regulations, and arrest and
detain those engaged in the insurrection and rebellion or in other crimes
"in furtherance or on the occasion thereof, or incident thereto or in
connection therewith." The President invoked his powers under article VII
section 10(2) of the 1935 Constitution "to save the Republic and reform
our society.”

b) By General Order No. 2 the President directed the Secretary of National

Defense to "forthwith arrest or cause the arrest ... the individuals named
in the attached lists for being participants or for having given aid and
comfort in the conspiracy to seize political and state power in the country
and to take over the government by force ... in order to prevent them from
further committing acts that are inimical or injurious ..." The Secretary
was directed to hold in custody the individuals so arrested "until
otherwise so ordered by me or by my duly designated representative."
The arrest and detention of the petitioners in these cases appear to have
been made pursuant to this order.

c) I cannot blink away the stark fact of a continuing Communist rebellion in

the Philippines. The Court has repeatedly taken cognizance of this fact in
several eases decided by it. In 1971, in Lansang vs. Garcia, the Court,
after reviewing the history of the Communist movement in the country
since the 1930s, concluded: "We entertain, therefore, no doubts about
the existence of a sizeable group of men who have publicly risen in arms
to overthrow the government and have thus been and still are engaged in
rebellion against the Government of the Philippines." It a rmed this
nding in 1972 in sustaining the validity of the Anti-Subversion Act
(Republic Act 1700). The Act is itself a congressional recognition and
acute awareness of the continuing threat of Communist subversion to
democratic institutions in this country. Enacted in 1957, it has remained in

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 the statute books despite periodic agitation in many quarters for its total
excision.

d) At times the rebellion required no more than ordinary police action,

coupled with criminal prosecutions. Thus the 1932 Communist trials
resulted in the conviction of the well-known Communists of the day:
Crisanto Evangelista, Jacinto G. Manahan, Dominador J. Ambrosio,
Guillermo Capadocia, Ignacio Nabong and Juan Feleo, among others, for
crimes ranging from illegal association to rebellion and sedition.

e) The end of World War II saw the resurgence of the Communist rebellion.
Now with an army forged out of the former Hukbalahaps (the armed
resistance against the Japanese) and renamed Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng
Bayan or HMB, the threat to the security of the state became so
malevolent that on October 22, 1950, President Elpidio Quirino was
impelled to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. This
enabled the Government to e ect the apprehension of top Communist
Party leaders Guillermo Capadocia, Flavio Nava, Amado V. Hernandez,
Jesus Lava, Jose Lava, Angel Baking and Simeon Rodriguez, among
others. 37 When challenged by one of those detained under the
Presidential proclamation the suspension of the privilege of the writ of
habeas corpus was sustained by the Court.

f) The beginning of the 1970s was marked by the rise of student activism.
This phenomenon swept around the globe, and did not spare our own
colleges and universities. Soon the campuses became staging grounds
for student demonstrations that generally ended in bloody and not
infrequently lethal street riots.

g) In Navarro vs. Villegas, 39 in upholding the power of the Mayor of Manila to

determine the place and time for the holding of public assemblies, this
Court noted —That experiences in connection with present assemblies
and demonstrations do not warrant the Court's disbelieving respondent
Mayor's appraisal that a public rally at Plaza Miranda, as compared to
one at the Sunken Gardens as he suggested, poses a clearer and more
imminent danger of public disorders, breaches of the peace, criminal
acts, and even bloodshed as an aftermath of such assemblies, and
petitioner has manifested that it has no means of preventing such
disorders;

h) That, consequently, every time that such assemblies are announced, the
community is placed in such a state of fear and tension that o ces are
closed early and employees dismissed storefronts boarded up, classes
suspended, and transportation disrupted to the general detriment of the
public.

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 i) Riding on the crest of student unrest, the Communist rebellion gained
momentum. As the Court noted in Lansang vs. Garcia,

(1) [T]he reorganized Communist Party of the Philippines has, moreover,

adopted Mao's concept of protracted people's war, aimed at the
paralyzation of the will to resist of the government, of the political,
economic and intellectual leadership, and of the people themselves;
that conformably to such concept the Party has placed special
emphasis upon most extensive and intensive program of subversion
by the establishment of front organizations in urban centers, the
organization of armed city partisans and the in ltration in student
groups, labor unions, and farmer and professional groups; that the
CPP has managed to in ltrate or establish and control nine (9) major
labor organizations; that it has exploited the youth movement and
succeeded in making Communist fronts of eleven (11) major student
or youth organizations; that there are, accordingly, about thirty (30)
mass organizations actively advancing the CPP interests, among
which are the Malayang Samahan ng Magsasaka (MASAKA) the
Kabataang Makabayan (KM), the Movement for the Advancement of
Nationalism (MAN), the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK),
the Samahang Molave (SM), and the Malayang Pagkakaisa ng
Kabataang Pilipino (MPKP); that, as of August, 1971, the KM had two
hundred forty- ve (245) operational chapters throughout the
Philippines, of which seventy-three (73) were in the Greater Manila
Area, sixty (60) in Northern Luzon, forty-nine (49) in Central Luzon,
forty-two (42) in the Visayas and twenty-one (21) in Mindanao and
Sulu; that in 1970, the Party had recorded two hundred fty-eight
(258) major demonstrations, of which about thirty-three i33) ended in
violence, resulting in fteen (15) killed and over ve hundred (500)
injured; that most of these actions were organized, coordinated or led
by the aforementioned front organizations; that the violent
demonstrations were generally instigated by a small, but well-trained
group of armed agitators; that the number of demonstrations
heretofore staked in 1971 has already exceeded those in 1970; and
that twenty-four (24) of these demonstrations were violent, and
resulted in the death of fteen (15) persons and the injury of many
more.

j) The mounting level of violence necessitated the suspension, for the

second time, of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus on August 21,
1971. The Government's action was questioned in Lansang vs. Garcia.
This Court found that the intensi cation and spread of Communist
insurgency imperiled the state. The events after the suspension of the
privilege of the writ con rmed the alarming extent of the danger to public
safety:

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 (1) Subsequent events — as reported — have also proven that
petitioner's counsel have underestimated the threat to public safety
posed by the New People's Army. Indeed, it appears that, since
August 21, 1971, it had in Northern Luzon six (6) encounters and
staged one (1) raid, in consequence of which seven (7) soldiers lost
their lives and two (2) others were wounded, whereas the insurgents
su ered ve (5) casualties; that on August 26, 1971, a well-armed
group of NPA, trained by defector Lt. Victor Corpus, attacked the very
command post of TF LAWIN in Isabela, destroying two (2) helicopters
and one (1) plane, and wounding one (1) soldier; that the NPA had in
Central Luzon a total of four (4) encounters, with two (2) killed and
three (3) wounded on the side of the Government, one (1) KM-SDK
leader, an unidenti ed dissident, and Commander Panchito, leader of
dissident group, were killed; that on August 26, 1971, there was an
encounter in the Barrio of San Pedro, Iriga City, Camarines Sur,
between the PC and the NPA, in which a PC and two (2) KM members
were killed; that the current disturbances in Cotabato and the Lanao
provinces have been rendered more complex by the involvement of
the CPP/NPA for, in mid-1971, a KM group headed by Jovencio
Esparagoza, contacted the Higa-onan tribes, in their settlement in
Magsaysay, Misamis Oriental, and o ered them books, pamphlets and
brochures of Mao Tse Tung, as well as conducted teach-ins in the
reservation; that Esparagoza was reportedly killed on September 22,
1971, in an operation of the PC in said reservation; and that there are
now two (2) NPA cadres in Mindanao.

k) It should, also, be noted that adherents of the CPP and its front
organization are accordingly to intelligence ndings, de nitely capable of
preparing powerful explosives out of locally available materials; that the
bomb used in the Constitutional Convention Hall was a 'clay more' mine,
a powerful explosive device used by the U.S. Arm believed to have been
one of many pilfered from the Subic Naval Base a few days before; that
the President had received intelligence information to the e ect that there
was a July-August Plan involving a wave of assassinations, kidnappings,
terrorism and mass destruction of property and that an extraordinary
occurrence would signal the beginning of said event; that the rather
serious condition of peace and order in Mindanao, particularly in
Cotabato and Lanao, demanded the presence therein of forces su cient
to cope with the situation; that a sizeable part of our armed forces
discharges other functions; and that the expansion of the CPP activities
from Central Luzon to other parts of the country particularly Manila and
its suburbs the Cagayan Valley, Ifugao, Zambales, Laguna, Quezon and
Bicol Region, required that the rest of our armed forces be spread thin
over a wide area.

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 l) By virtue of these ndings, the Court, led by Chief Justice Roberto
Concepcion, unanimously upheld the suspension of the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus. The Court said:

(1) Considering that the President was in possession of the above data —
except those related to events that happened after August 21, 1971 —
when the Plaza Miranda prompting, took place, the Court is not
prepared to held that the Executive had acted arbitrarily or gravely
abused his discretion when he then concluded that public safety and
national security required the suspension of the privilege of the writ,
particularly if the NPA were to strike simultaneously with violent
demonstrations staged by the two hundred forty- ve (245) KM
chapters, all over the Philippines, with the assistance and cooperation
of the dozens of CPP front organizations, and the bombing of water
mains and conduits, as well as electric power plants and installations
— a possibility which, no matter how remote, he was bound to
forestall, and a danger he was under obligation to anticipate and at
rest.

(2) He had consulted his advisers and sought their views. He had reason
to feel that the situation was critical — as, indeed, it was — and
demanded immediate action. This he took believing in good faith that
public safety required it. And, in the light of the circumstances
adverted to above, he had substantial grounds to entertain such
belief.”

(3) The suspension of the privilege of the writ was lifted on January 7,
1972, but soon thereafter chaos engulfed the nation again. A large
area of the country was in open rebellion. The authority of the
Government was frontally challenged by a coalition of forces. It was
against this backdrop of violence and anarchy that martial law was
proclaimed on September 21, 1972.

2. (PABLO C. SANIDAD and PABLITO V. SANIDAD vs. HONORABLE

COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and HONORABLE NATIONAL TREASURER,
G.R. No. L-44640 October 12, 1976)

3. On September 2, 1976, President Ferdinand E. Marcos issued Presidential

Decree No. 991 calling for a national referendum on October 16, 1976 for the
Citizens Assemblies ("barangays") to resolve, among other things, the issues
of martial law, xxx its replacement, the powers of such replacement, the
period of its existence, the length of the period for the exercise by the
President of his present powers.

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 4. Twenty days after or on September 22, 1976, the President issued another
related decree, Presidential Decree No. 1031, amending the previous
Presidential Decree No. 991, by declaring the provisions of presidential
Decree No. 229 providing for the manner of voting and canvass of votes in
"barangays" (Citizens Assemblies) applicable to the national referendum-
plebiscite of October 16, 1976.

5. On the same date of September 22, 1976, the President issued Presidential
Decree No. 1033, stating the questions to be submitted to the people in the
referendum-plebiscite on October 16, 1976. The Decree recites in its
"whereas" clauses that the people's continued opposition to the convening
of the National Assembly evinces their desire to have such body abolished
and replaced thru a constitutional amendment, providing for a legislative
body, which will be submitted directly to the people in the referendum-
plebiscite of October 16.

6. The questions ask, to wit:

a) Do you want martial law to be continued?

b) Whether or not you want martial law to be continued, do you approve the
following amendments to the Constitution? For the purpose of the
second question, the referendum shall have the e ect of a plebiscite
within the contemplation of Section 2 of Article XVI of the Constitution.

7. PROPOSED AMENDMENTS:

a) There shall be, in lieu of the interim National Assembly, an interim

Batasang Pambansa. Members of the interim Batasang Pambansa which
shall not be more than 120, unless otherwise provided by law, shall
include the incumbent President of the Philippines, representatives
elected from the di erent regions of the nation, those who shall not be
less than eighteen years of age elected by their respective sectors, and
those chosen by the incumbent President from the members of the
Cabinet. Regional representatives shall be apportioned among the
regions in accordance with the number of their respective inhabitants and
on the basis of a uniform and progressive ratio while the sectors shall be
determined by law. The number of representatives from each region or
sector and the, manner of their election shall be prescribed and regulated
by law.

b) The interim Batasang Pambansa shall have the same powers and its
members shall have the same functions, responsibilities, rights,
privileges, and disquali cations as the interim National Assembly and the
regular National Assembly and the members thereof. However, it shall not

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 exercise the power provided in Article VIII, Section 14(l) of the
Constitution.

c) The incumbent President of the Philippines shall, within 30 days from the
election and selection of the members, convene the interim Batasang
Pambansa and preside over its sessions until the Speaker shall have
been elected. The incumbent President of the Philippines shall be the
Prime Minister and he shall continue to exercise all his powers even after
the interim Batasang Pambansa is organized and ready to discharge its
functions and likewise he shall continue to exercise his powers and
prerogatives under the nineteen hundred and thirty ve Constitution and
the powers vested in the President and the Prime Minister under this
Constitution.

d) The President (Prime Minister) and his Cabinet shall exercise all the
powers and functions, and discharge the responsibilities of the regular
President (Prime Minister) and his Cabinet, and shall be subject only to
such disquali cations as the President (Prime Minister) may prescribe.
The President (Prime Minister) if he so desires may appoint a Deputy
Prime Minister or as many Deputy Prime Ministers as he may deem
necessary.

e) The incumbent President shall continue to exercise legislative powers

until martial law shall have been lifted.

f) Whenever in the judgment of the President (Prime Minister), there exists a

grave emergency or a threat or imminence thereof, or whenever the
interim Batasang Pambansa or the regular National Assembly fails or is
unable to act adequately on any matter for any reason that in his
judgment requires immediate action, he may, in order to meet the
exigency, issue the necessary decrees, orders or letters of instructions,
which shall form part of the law of the land.

g) The barangays and sanggunians shall continue as presently constituted

but their functions, powers, and composition may be altered by law.
Referenda conducted thru the barangays and under the Supervision of
the Commission on Elections may be called at any time the government
deems it necessary to ascertain the will of the people regarding any
important matter whether of national or local interest.

h) All provisions of this Constitution not inconsistent with any of these

amendments shall continue in full force and e ect.

i) These amendments shall take e ect after the incumbent President shall
have proclaimed that they have been rati ed by I majority of the votes
cast in the referendum-plebiscite.”

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 j) The Commission on Elections was vested with the exclusive supervision
and control of the October 1976 National Referendum-Plebiscite.

8. Petitioners contend that under the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions there is no
grant to the incumbent President to exercise the constituent power to
propose amendments to the new Constitution. As a consequence, the
Referendum-Plebiscite on October 16 has no constitutional or legal basis.

9. The Solicitor General principally maintains that petitioners have no standing

to sue; the issue raised is political in nature, beyond judicial cognizance of
this Court; at this state of the transition period, only the incumbent President
has the authority to exercise constituent power; the referendum-plebiscite is
a step towards normalization.

10. xxx petitioners argue that even granting him legislative powers under Martial
Law, the incumbent President cannot act as a constituent assembly to
propose amendments to the Constitution; a referendum-plebiscite is
untenable under the Constitutions of 1935 and 1973; the submission of the
proposed amendments in such a short period of time for deliberation renders
the plebiscite a nullity; to lift Martial Law, the President need not consult the
people via referendum; and allowing 15-.year olds to vote would amount to
an amendment of the Constitution, which con nes the right of su rage to
those citizens of the Philippines 18 years of age and above.

11. The three issues are:

a) Is the question of the constitutionality of Presidential Decrees Nos. 991,

1031 and 1033 political or justiciable?

b) During the present stage of the transition period, and under, the
environmental circumstances now obtaining, does the President possess
power to propose amendments to the Constitution as well as set up the
required machinery and prescribe the procedure for the rati cation of his
proposals by the people?

c) Is the submission to the people of the proposed amendments within the

time frame allowed therefor a su cient and proper submission?

12. Upon the rst issue, Chief Justice Fred Ruiz Castro and Associate Justices
Enrique M. Fernando, Claudio Teehankee, Antonio P. Barredo, Cecilia Munoz
Palma, Hermogenes Concepcion Jr. and Ruperto G. Martin are of the view
that the question posed is justiciable, while Associate Justices Felix V.
Makasiar, Felix Q. Antonio and Ramon C. Aquino hold the view that the
question is political.

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 13. Upon the second issue, Chief Justice Castro and Associate Justices
Barredo, Makasiar, Antonio, Aquino, Concepcion Jr. and Martin voted in the
a rmative, while Associate Justices Teehankee and Munoz Palma voted in
the negative. Associate Justice Fernando, conformably to his concurring and
dissenting opinion in Aquino vs. Enrile (59 SCRA 183), speci cally dissents
from the proposition that there is concentration of powers in the Executive
during periods of crisis, thus raising serious doubts as to the power of the
President to propose amendments.

14. Upon the third issue, Chief Justice Castro and Associate Justices Barredo,
Makasiar, Aquino, Concepcion Jr. and Martin are of the view that there is a
su cient and proper submission of the proposed amendments for rati cation
by the people. Associate Justices Barredo and Makasiar expressed the
hope, however that the period of time may be extended. Associate Justices
Fernando, Makasiar and Antonio are of the view that the question is political
and therefore beyond the competence and cognizance of this Court,
Associate Justice Fernando adheres to his concurrence in the opinion of
Chief Justice Concepcion in Gonzales vs. COMELEC (21 SCRA 774).
Associate Justices Teehankee and MUNOZ Palma hold that prescinding from
the President's lack of authority to exercise the constituent power to propose
the amendments, etc., as above stated, there is no fair and proper
submission with su cient information and time to assure intelligent consent
or rejection under the standards set by this Court in the controlling cases of
Gonzales, supra, and Tolentino vs. COMELEC (41 SCRA 702).

15. Chief Justice Castro and Associate Justices Barredo, Makasiar, Antonio,
Aquino, Concepcion Jr. and Martin voted to dismiss the three petitions at
bar. For reasons as expressed in his separate opinion, Associate Justice
Fernando concurs in the result. Associate Justices Teehankee and Munoz
Palma voted to grant the petitions. ACCORDINGLY, the vote being 8 to 2 to
dismiss, the said petitions are hereby dismissed. This decision is immediately
executory.

G. Benigno Aquino Jr.

1. G.R. No. 72670 September 12, 1986 SATURNINA GALMAN, vs.

SANDIGANBAYAN

a) xxx foremost opposition leader former Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino,

Jr. imprisoned for almost eight years since the imposition of martial law in
September, 1972 by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos, he was
sentenced to death by ring squad by a military tribunal for common
o enses alleged to have been committed long before the declaration of
martial law and whose jurisdiction over him as a civilian entitled to trial by
judicial process by civil courts he repudiated.

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 b) Ninoy pleaded in vain that the military tribunals are admittedly not courts
but mere instruments and subject to the control of the President as
created by him under the General Orders issued by him as Commander-
in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and that he had already
been publicly indicted and adjudged guilty by the President of the
charges in a nationwide press conference held on August 24, 1971 when
he declared the evidence against Ninoy "not only strong but
overwhelming.

c) This followed the Plaza Miranda bombing of August 21, 1971 of the
proclamation rally of the opposition Liberal Party candidates for the
November, 1971 elections (when eight persons were killed and practically
all of the opposition candidates headed by Senator Jovito Salonga and
many more were seriously injured), and the suspension of the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus under Proclamation No. 889 on August 23,
1971. The massacre was instantly attributed to the communists but the
truth has never been known. But the then President never led the said
charges against Ninoy in the civil courts.

d) Ninoy Aquino was nevertheless thereafter allowed in May, 1980 to leave

the country to undergo successful heart surgery. After three years of exile
and despite the regime's refusal to give him a passport, he sought to
return home "to strive for a genuine national reconciliation founded on
justice." He was to be cold-bloodedly killed while under escort away by
soldiers from his plane that had just landed at the Manila International
Airport on that fateful day at past 1 p.m. His brain was smashed by a
bullet red point blank into the back of his head by a murderous assassin,
notwithstanding that the airport was ringed by airtight security of close to
2,000 soldiers and "from a military viewpoint, it (was) technically
impossible to get inside (such) a cordon."

e) The military investigators reported within a span of three hours that the
man who shot Aquino (whose identity was then supposed to be unknown
and was revealed only days later as Rolando Galman, although he was
the personal friend of accused Col. Arturo Custodio who picked him up
from his house on August 17, 1983) was a communist-hired gunman, and
that the military escorts gunned him down in turn. The military later lmed
a re-enactment of the killing scripted according to this version and
continuously replayed it on all TV channels as if it were taken live on the
spot. The then President instantly accepted the military version and
repeated it in a nationally televised press conference that he gave late in
the evening of August 22, 1983, wherein he said, in order to induce
disbelief that the military had a hand in the killing, that "if the purpose was
to eliminate Aquino, this was not the way to do it.”

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 f) The national tragedy shocked the conscience of the entire nation and
outraged the free world. The large masses of people who joined in the
ten-day period of national mourning and came out in millions in the
largest and most orderly public turnout for Ninoy's funeral re ected their
grief for his martyrdom and their yearning for the truth, justice and
freedom.

g) The then President was constrained to create a Fact Finding Board to

investigate "the treacherous and vicious assassination of former Senator
Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. on August 21, 1983 [which] has to all Filipinos
become a national tragedy and national shame specially because of the
early distortions and exaggerations in both foreign and local media so
that all right thinking and honest men desire to ventilate the truth through
fair, independent and dispassionate investigation by prestigious and free
investigators."

h) After two false starts, he nally constituted the Board on October 22,
1983 which held 125 hearing days commencing November 3, 1983
(including 3 hearings in Tokyo and 8 hearings in Los Angeles, California)
and heard the testimonies of 194 witnesses recorded in 20,377 pages of
transcripts, until the submission of their minority and majority reports to
the President on October 23 and 24, 1984.

i) This was to mark another rst anywhere in the world wherein the minority
report was submitted one day ahead by the ponente thereof, the
chairman, who was received congenially and cordially by the then
President who treated the report as if it were the majority report instead of
a minority report of one and forthwith referred it to respondent
Tanodbayan "for nal resolution through the legal system" and for trial in
the Sandiganbayan which was better known as a graft court; and the
majority report of the four other members was submitted on the following
day to the then President who coldly received them and could scarcely
conceal his instant rejection of their report with the grim statement that "I
hope you can live with your conscience with what you have done.”

j) The fact is that both majority and minority reports were one in rejecting
the military version as propounded by the chief investigator, respondent
Gen. Olivas, that Rolando Galman was the NPA-hired assassin, stating
that "the evidence shows [to the contrary] that Rolando Galman had no
subversive a liations."

k) They were in agreement that "only the soldiers in the staircase with Sen.
Aquino could have shot him;" that Galman, the military's "fall guy" was
"not the assassin of Sen. Aquino and that "the SWAT troopers who
gunned down Galman and the soldiers who escorted Sen. Aquino down
the service stairs, deliberately and in conspiracy with one another, gave a

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 perjured story to us regarding the alleged shooting by Galman of Sen.
Aquino and the mowing down, in turn, of Galman himself;" in short, that
Ninoy's assassination was the product of a military conspiracy, not a
communist plot. The only di erence between the two reports is that the
majority report found all the twenty-six private respondents xxx headed
by then AFP Chief General Fabian C. Ver involved in the military
conspiracy and therefore "indictable for the premeditated killing of
Senator Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. and Rolando Galman at the MIA on
August 21, 1983;" while the chairman's minority report would exclude
nineteen of them and limit as plotters "the six persons who were on the
service stairs while Senator Aquino was descending" and "General Luther
Custodio . . . because the criminal plot could not have been planned and
implemented without his intervention.”

l) The chairman wrote in her minority report (somewhat prophetically) that

"The epilogue to our work lies in what will transpire in accordance with
the action that the O ce of the President may thereafter direct to be
taken. "The four-member majority report (also prophetically) wrote in the
epilogue (after warning the forces who adhere to an alien and intolerable
political ideology against unscrupulously using the report "to discredit our
traditionally revered institutions"), that "the tragedy opened our eyes and
for the rst time con rmed our worst fears of what unchecked evil would
be capable of doing." They wrote:

(1) The task of the Board was clear and unequivocal. This task was not
only to determine the facts and circumstances surrounding the death
of the late former Senator. Of greater signi cance is the awesome
responsibility of the Board to uphold righteousness over evil, justice
over injustice, rationality over irrationality, humaneness over
inhumanity. The task was indeed a painful test, the inevitable result of
which will restore our country's honored place among the sovereign
nations of the free world where peace, law and order, freedom, and
justice are a way of life.

(2) More than any other event in contemporary Philippine history, the
killing of the late former Senator Aquino has brought into sharper
focus, the ills pervading Philippine society. It was the concretization of
the horror that has been haunting this country for decades, routinely
manifested by the breakdown of peace and order, economic
instability, subversion, graft and corruption, and an increasing number
of abusive elements in what are otherwise noble institutions in our
country-the military and law enforcement agencies. We are, however,
convinced that, by and large, the great majority of the o cers and
men of these institutions have remained decent and honorable,
dedicated to their noble mission in the service of our country and
people.

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 (3) The tragedy opened our eyes and for the rst time con rmed our
worst fears of what unchecked evil would be capable of doing. As
former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban observes. "Nobody who has
great authority can be trusted not to go beyond its proper limits."
Social apathy, passivity and indi erence and neglect have spawned in
secret a dark force that is bent on destroying the values held sacred
by freedom-loving people.

(4) To assert our proper place in the civilized world, it is imperative that
public o cials should regard public service as a re ection of human
Ideals in which the highest sense of moral values and integrity are
strictly required.

(5) A tragedy like that which happened on August 21, 1983, and the crisis
that followed, would have normally caused the resignation of the Chief
of the Armed Forces in a country where public o ce is viewed with
highest esteem and respect and where the moral responsibilities of
public o cials transcend all other considerations.

m) It is equally the fact that the then President through all his recorded public
acts and statements from the beginning disdained and rejected his own
Board's above ndings and insisted on the military version of Galman
being Ninoy's assassin. In upholding this view that "there is no
involvement of anyone in his government in the assassination," he told
David Briscoe (then AP Manila Bureau Chief in a Radio-TV interview on
September 9, 1983 that "I am convinced that if any member of my
government were involved, I would have known somehow ... Even at a
fairly low level, I would have known. I know how they think. I know what
they are thinking of." 7 He told CBS in another interview in May, 1984 (as
his Fact Finding Board was holding its hearings) the following:

(1) CBS: But indeed there has been recent evidence that seems to
contradict earlier reports, namely, the recent evidence seems to
indicate that some of the guards may have been responsible (for
shooting Ninoy).

(2) MARCOS: Well, you are of course wrong. What you have been reading
are the newspapers and the newspaper reports have been biased.
The evidence still proves that Galman was the killer. The evidence also
shows that there were intelligence reports connecting the communist
party to the killing.

H. OTHER VICTIMS OF MARCOS’S REGIME (OLAGUER v. MILITARY

COMMISSION, G.R. No. L-54558 May 22, 1987)

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 1. XXX The late Senator Jose W. Diokno who passed away this year was
among the rst victims of the martial law coup d'etat to be locked up with
Senator Aquino. In March, 1973, all of their personal e ects, including their
eyeglasses were ominously returned to their homes. Their wives' visitation
privileges were suspended and they lost all contact for over a month. It
turned out that Aquino had smuggled out of his cell a written statement
critical of the martial law regime. In swift retribution, both of them were own
out blindfolded to the army camp at Fort Laur in Nueva Ecija and kept in
solitary con nement in dark boarded cells with hardly any ventilation. When
their persons were produced before the Court on habeas corpus
proceedings, they were a pitiable sight having lost about 30 to 40 lbs. in
weight. Senator Diokno was to be released in September, 1974 after almost
two years of detention. No charges of any kind were ever led against him.
His only fault was that he was a possible rival for the presidency.

2. Horacio Morales, Jr., 1977 TOYM awardee for government service and then
executive vice-president of the Development Academy of the Philippines,
was among the hard-working government functionaries who had been
radicalized and gave up their government positions. Morales went
underground on the night he was supposed to receive his TOYM award,
declaring that "(F)or almost ten years, I have been an o cial in the
reactionary government, serviced the Marcos dictatorship and all that it
stands for, serving a ruling system that has brought so much su ering and
misery to the broad masses of the Filipino people. I refuse to take any more
part of this. I have had enough of this regime's tyranny and treachery, greed
and brutality, exploitation and oppression of the people," and "(I)n rejecting
my position and part in the reactionary government, I am glad to be nally
free of being a servant of foreign and local vested interest. I am happy to be
ghting side by side with the people." He was apprehended in 1982 and was
charged with the capital crime of subversion, until he was freed in March,
1986 after President Corazon C. Aquino's assumption of o ce, together with
other political prisoners and detainees and prisoners of conscience in
ful llment of her campaign pledge.

3. U.P. Collegian editor Abraham Sarmiento, Jr., worthy son of an illustrious

member of the Court pricked the conscience of many as he asked on the
front page of the college paper: Sino ang kikibo kung hindi tayo kikibo? Sino
ang kikilos kung hindi tayo kikilos? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa? He was
locked up in the military camp and released only when he was near death
from a severe attack of asthma, to which he succumbed.

4. Another TOYM awardee, Edgar Jopson, an outstanding honor student at the

Ateneo University, instinctively pinpointed the gut issue in 1971-he pressed
for a "non-partisan Constitutional Convention;" and demanded that the then
president-soon-to-turn dictator "put down in writing" that he was not going
to manipulate the Constitution to remove his disquali cation to run for a third

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 term or perpetuate himself in o ce and was called down as "son of a
grocer." When as he feared, martial law was declared, Jopson went
underground to continue the struggle and was to be waylaid and killed at the
age of 34 by 21 military troops as the reported head of the rebel movement
in Mindanao.

5. Another activist honor student leader, Emmanuel Yap, son of another

eminent member of the Court, was to disappear on Valentine's Day in 1976
at the young age of 24, reportedly picked up by military agents in front of
Channel 7 in Quezon City, and never to be seen again.

6. One of our most promising young leaders, Evelio B. Javier, 43, unarmed,
governor of the province of Antique at 28, a Harvard-trained lawyer, was
mercilessly gunned down with impunity in broad daylight at 10 a.m. in front
of the provincial capitol building by six mad-dog killers who riddled his body
with 24 bullets red from M-16 armalite ri es (the standard heavy automatic
weapon of our military). He was just taking a breather and stretching his legs
from the tedious but tense proceedings of the canvassing of the returns of
the presidential snap election in the capitol building. This was to be the last
straw and the bloodless EDSA revolt was soon to unfold.

I. People Power

1. People Power 1

a) The EDSA Revolution and the Installation of the Aquino Government

(From the Memoir of Jovito R. Salonga; A Journey of Struggle and
Hope)

(1) The rst ten hours

(a) Among those who witnessed the rst nine or ten hours of the
events of February 22 and 23, there is a consensus that Marcos
lost the “EDSA people power revolution” when he and his generals
failed to launch an armored attack against Juan Ponce Enrile, Fidel
V. Ramos, and their ragtag band of loyal troops – which numbered
200 armed men, more or less – at Camp Aguinaldo. In a press
conference held at 7:15 p.m. on Saturday (February 22), Enrile and
Ramos publicly withdrew their support from Marcos. Shortly after
this conference, General Fabian Ver, who apparently had lost his
poise with the discovery of the palace plot in the early afternoon,
called Enrile and pleaded with him “to tell [his] men not to attack
the place.” Enrile was only too happy to comply. He even had the
chutzpah to warn Ver “not to allow [his] men to approach our
area.”

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 (b) Butz Aquino had been asked by some rebel o cers to rally the
people to help defend the camps. He called several Opposition
leaders, but they were reluctant to do so. At 11p.m., Butz, who had
tried to help the rebels by contacting some of his friends, went to
the so-called assembly point near the camps and found only six
people there. It was only in the wee hours of the morning of
Sunday, after Cardinal Sin’s appeal had been aired by the Radio
Veritas, that around 20, 000 people came to EDSA to show their
support. There was no mammoth crowd yet at that time.

(2) The second day

(a) I hardly slept the whole night. At 6:30 a.m. of Sunday, February 23,
Lydia and I were at central church on San Luis, Manila, for the
wedding of Timothy Aquino, the son of our dear friends Boy and
Cely Aquino. There was a mixture of rejoicing and anxiety among
the people there because of what was happening at EDSA. After
the reception, we visited the ailing Joe Luna Castro at the Manila
Medical Center. Joe, our compadre, had been editor of the Manila
Times, the biggest paper before martial law. I used to play golf with
him before the Plaza Miranda bombing. Shortly after the
proclamation of martial law, he was detained for a while,
presumably due to the ignorance of some soldiers who thought he
was keeping subversive books in his o ce. After his release, Joe
became quite close to Imelda’s younger brother, Benjamin
“Koykoy” Romualdez, his compadre, who had been appointed to
the Philippine Embassy in Beijing. Joe had wanted to be
considered for the presidency of Silliman University, but that
position had been o ered to our dear friend, King Doromal. And
now, Joe was quite sick, and his wife Rosie was taking care of him.
What a time to be sick, I thought. My heart went out to Joe, my
faithful friend of many years.

(b) When we got home, the telephone was ringing – it was my godson
Ranjit Shahani. He said he was with his uncle Eddie Ramos all
night at Camp Crame. Their Intelligence report was that they would
to be hit very shortly by artillery coming from the direction of the
University of Life in Pasig. He asked for help. I contacted our Pasig
leaders, and when I checked a little later, they were already there
on the premises of Imelda’s University of Life. There was no
artillery.

(c) At one in the afternoon, I was at the residence of the Old Man
Tañada with Pepe Diokno and Father Ed Garcia. The question
being debated was whether we in the Opposition should help the
troops under Enrile and Ramos. Tanny and I were strongly in favor

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 of assisting them in every possible way. Pepe Diokno, who had his
doubts about the military, was against it. His attitude was:
Pabayaan natin silang magpatayan (Let them kill each other).
Father Ed, citing the Cardinal’s message and its e ect on those
who were now ocking to EDSA, was obviously on our side. It was
3 to 1, in favor of helping the rebels. The discussion sounded
unrealistic to me, given the increasing public support for the rebels.

(d) After the meeting, Lydia and I went to Ortigas Avenue and saw
tens of thousands of people there. The tanks were still around,
surrounded by hordes of people, including nuns and other religious
who were ready to die. This was what the whole world saw on their
TV screens. The Tanks withdrew later, and now, it was like a esta.
When we reached the vicinity of Camp Aguinaldo, there was a lot
of clapping and merriment. The people that had assembled around
the camp seemed very happy to see us. The same thing occurred
near Camp Crame. When evening came, we went to the nearby
residence of my niece Erlinda and her husband Ben Pastoral. We
sat up most of the night, glued to the radio and keeping watch
over the developments from hour to hour.

(3) The third day

(a) Early the next morning (Monday), General Ver reported Col.
Antonio Sotelo and his 15th Strike Wing to provide air support for
what had been expected to be the dawn assault of the marines. At
6 a.m., Sotelo and his men who were piloting nine helicopters
hovered brie y over the two military camps, then dived onto the
parade ground of Camp Crame. For some moments, there was
tension among those who watched them. The pilots jumped out in
quick succession, waved their handkerchiefs, and were embraced
by their fellow rebels. Now the rebels had complete control of the
skies. There was no more doubt about the outcome.

(b) A little later in the morning, Cory sent word that she would like to
see me at her sister Josephine’s residence in Wack-wack around
noontime. Celing Palma called – could I come to her house rst? I
went to Ceiling’s residence and saw the Old Man Tañada, Pepe
Diokno, Ambrosio Padilla, and Tito Guingona. They were
discussing the Provisional Government and who should be
recommended for what position. Pepe Diokno said that Joker
Arroyo should be the secretary of justice. Others made their own
suggestions. I held my peace, thinking that Cory at this point was
surrounded by her own advisers with their own ideas and Doy
must be doing the same. At noon time, I was at Josephine’s
residence. Monching Mitra arrived and told us that the Batasan

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 was set to proclaim Cory at around 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We
discussed with Cory the kind of government she should have.
Someone called, and after a while Cory informed us that she would
go to Doy’s place to meet with twenty Opposition LPs. It seemed
there was no basic decision as to what to do with the Batasan-
whether it should be allowed to continue or whether it should be
disbanded. The news came that Channel 4 had just been taken
over by the rebels.

(c) In the early evening, I was called again to the residence of

Josephine, Cory’s sister. When I arrived there, I saw a sizable
crowd in her residence. The rst smell of power, I thought to
myself. I was ushered into a room where I saw Cory with Jimmy
Ongpin. Then Rene Saguisag came in, followed Louie Villafuerte.
Two drafts of a proclamation were being considered. Apparently, a
new government was to be installed with Cory as President and
Doy Laurel as prime minister.

(d) I did not know that, at this point, a suggestion had been made by
Johnny Enrile and his men that the oath-taking of Cory Aquino
should be done in Camp Crame for security reasons as well as to
signify the new symbolic value of what used to be a notorious
camp. In any case, Cory said no. She would not be sworn in any
military camp- she would take her oath-taking of Cory and Doy at
Club Filipino, which had been the meeting place of various
opposition groups since her arrival in 1983 following Ninoy’s
assassination.

(e) Around 7 p.m., the telephone rang. An assault by the forces of

Marcos was expected any moment, the caller said. Everyone was
asked the question: Should the proclamation of the new
government and the oath-taking of Cory and Doy at Club Filipino
go through within the next hour or should it be postponed for the
following morning? I was in favor of deferment. The consensus
was that the oath-taking should take place the next morning.

(4) Marcos’s last contact with Washington

(a) A few miles away, something was happening we did not know
anything about. At 3 0’clock in the morning, Marcos was
contacting his friends in the United States. He got hold of
Reagan’s close friend, Senator Laxalt, in Washington where
Secretary Schultz, Ambassador Habib, and undersecretary
Armacost were brie ng Senators on the crisis in Manila. What
Marcos really wanted to know was whether the messages received
in Manila about a peaceful transition to a new government

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 expressed the views of President Reagan. Laxalt said he would
check with the president. Among these diplomats in Washington,
Marcos’s proposal for a coalition government was unacceptable.
As to whether he could stay in the country, they said “that would
be up to Mrs. Aquino.”

(b) It was 5 0’clock in the morning in Manila when Laxalt called

Marcos back. Again Marcos asked: Did President Reagan want
him resign? Laxalt said he could not answer for the President.
Then Marcos asked the crucial question, “What do you think I
should do?” And Laxalt said: “Cut and cut clean. The time has
come.”

(c) After a long pause, so long that Laxalt had to ask whether Marcos
was still there, a weak, dispirited Marcos nally said: “I am very,
very disappointed.”

(5) Installation of the Aquino Government

(a) At 9:30 in the morning, many Opposition leaders were already

assembled at the Kalayaan Hall of Club Filipino. In a few minutes,
Justices Claudio Teehankee and Vicente Abad Santos arrived.
They were seated beside me and Senator Lorenzo Tañada.

(b) Teehankee had been a follower of Marcos before martial Law. But
after the rati cation cases which were decided in 1973, he became
a principled dissenter and was bypassed several times by Marcos
for the post of Chief Justice. Abad Santos had been a respected
Dean of Law at the UP and although he was with the Marcos
Administration at the start of martial rule, he was never a blind
follower. These two justices would administer the oath of o ce to
Cory and Doy respectively. It was expected that they would
occupy the two highest positions in the judiciary.

(c) At almost 10 a.m., Johnny Enrile and Eddie Ramos arrived,

followed by Cory and Doy, who came in amidst thunderous
applause. Dingdong Teehankee asked me to nd out whether Cory,
who was seated nearby, had a prepared a thing. Teehankee asked,
“How about Doy?” Doy answered, “Yes, I have. Lagi tayong
handa.” (We are always prepared.) Cory was requested to have
someone prepare even a short speech.

(d) The hall was full of people and media representatives were there in
full force. The stage was now set for the reading of the
proclamation asserting the right of the people to establish a
government of their choice. My former law partner Neptali

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 Gonzales began reading the proclamation, announcing that names
of Opposition personalities who were its authors. A justice, who
had been close to Marcos from the beginning, was present and
when his name was announced, thunderous boos were heard. He
left the hall in a hu .

(e) Cory took oath before Teehankee, followed by Doy before Abad
Santos. Cory gave a short speech while Doy’s speech was much
longer.

(f) Cory thereupon announced that Juan Ponce Enrile would be the
Minister of National Defense, and Fidel V. Ramos would be the new
Chief of Sta of the Armed Forces. The Installation was over.

(6) Post-inaugural celebration, the Marcos inaugural and ight

(a) As the crowd began dispersing, my friends, Justice Dingdong

Teehankee, former Vice-President Manny Pelaez, and my neighbor
Tony Anton who was with Club Filipino, asked me and my son
Steve to join them in celebrating the event. We had drinks and a
hearty lunch. After a few words of best wishes, Steve and I went
home.

(b) It turned out that Marcos had also been inaugurated in

Malacañang by Chief Justice Ramon Aquino. But Arturo Tolentino,
his Vice-President, was nowhere to be found, nor Prime Minister
Cesar Virata. Marcos had been left alone by his close aides. Only
Imelda and the children were around to keep him company inside
the presidential palace. There were the usual keep him company
inside the presidential palace. There were the usual loyalists
around the palace grounds—but is was a pathetic sight.

(c) At 6p.m., I was asked to speak at the Ellinwood—Malate Church

before an assembly of church leaders. I spoke about the events of
the last few days and the unbelievable might of a determined
people who, although without arms, protected the military leaders
who had defected from the dictator. It was a historic role in
reverse. I said public expectations at the moment were probably
too high and the new democratic government must try to solve
many problems that could not be solved immediately—among
them unemployment, high prices, massive poverty, and corruption.

(d) I went home for dinner and, in a short while, a group of friends
came—Father Bernas, Dr. Noel Soriano, Dr. Alran Bengzon, and
Ching Escaler. We chatted about the prospects of the new
government, little realizing that the Marcoses and their close

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 associates were already preparing to leave Malacañang for Clark
Field.

(e) After our visitors left, Lydia and I received the happy news that the
Marcoses had ed and that a delirious crowd was converging on
the Palace. At last, the corrupt and repressive dictatorship had
come to an end. We were tired but happy. We had a sound, restful
sleep.

2. The People Power Aftermath

a) One needs only to recall the series of destabilizing actions attempted by

the so-called Marcos loyalists as well as the ultra-rightist groups during
the EDSA Revolution's aftermath to realize this. The most publicized of
these o ensives is the Manila Hotel incident which occurred barely ve (5)
months after the People's Power Revolution. Around 10,000 Marcos
supporters, backed by 300 loyalist soldiers led by Brigadier General Jose
Zumel and Lt. Col. Reynaldo Cabauatan converged at the Manila Hotel to
witness the oath-taking of Arturo Tolentino as acting president of the
Philippines. The public disorder and peril to life and limb of the citizens
engendered by this event subsided only upon the eventual surrender of
the loyalist soldiers to the authorities.

b) Then followed the Channel 7, Sangley, Villamor, Horseshoe Drive and

Camp Aguinaldo incidents. Military rebels waged simultaneous o ensives
in di erent parts of Metro Manila and Sangley Point in Cavite. A hundred
rebel soldiers took over Channel 7 and its radio station DZBB. About 74
soldier rebels attacked Villamor Air Base, while another group struck at
Sangley Point in Cavite and held the 15th Air Force Strike wing
commander and his deputy hostage. Troops on board several vehicles
attempted to enter Gate I of Camp Aguinaldo even as another batch of
200 soldiers encamped at Horseshoe Village.

c) Another destabilization plot was carried out in April, 1987 by enlisted

personnel who forced their way through Gate 1 of Fort Bonifacio. They
stormed into the army stockade but having failed to convince their
incarcerated members to unite in their cause, had to give up nine (9)
hours later.

d) And who can forget the August 28, 1987 coup attempt which almost
toppled the Aquino Government? Launched not by Marcos loyalists, but
by another ultra-rightist group in the military led by Col. Gregorio "Gringo"
Honasan xxx, this most serious attempt to wrest control of the
government resulted in the death of many civilians.

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 e) Members of the so-called Black Forest Commando were able to cart
away high-powered rearms and ammunition from the Camp Crame
Armory during a raid conducted in June 1988. Most of the group
members were, however, captured in Antipolo, Rizal. The same group
was involved in an unsuccessful plot known as Oplan Balik Saya which
sought the return of Marcos to the country.

f) A xxx threat to public order, peace and safety was the attempt of a group
named CEDECOR to mobilize civilians from nearby provinces to act as
blockading forces at di erent Metro Manila areas for the projected link-up
of Marcos military loyalist troops with the group of Honasan. The pseudo
"people power" movement was neutralized thru checkpoints set up by
the authorities along major road arteries where the members were
arrested or forced to turn back.

g) While not all of these disruptive incidents may be traced directly to the
Marcoses, their occurrence militates heavily against the wisdom of
allowing the Marcoses' return. Not only will the Marcoses' presence
embolden their followers toward similar actions, but any such action
would be seized upon as an opportunity by other enemies of the State,
such as the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA'S, the
Muslim secessionists and extreme rightists of the RAM, to wage an
o ensive against the government. Certainly, the state through its
executive branch has the power, nay, the responsibility and obligation, to
prevent a grave and serious threat to its safety from arising.

J. Highlights of History of the last four Presidents

1. ERAP

a) The Impeachment Trial (G.R. No. 146738           March 2, 2001 JOSEPH E.

ESTRADA, petitioner, vs. GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO, respondent.)

(1) On the line in the cases at bar is the o ce of the President. Petitioner
Joseph Ejercito Estrada alleges that he is the President on leave while
respondent Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo claims she is the President. The
warring personalities are important enough but more transcendental
are the constitutional issues embedded on the parties' dispute. While
the signi cant issues are many, the jugular issue involves the
relationship between the ruler and the ruled in a democracy, Philippine
style.

(2) First, we take a view of the panorama of events that precipitated the
crisis in the o ce of the President.

(3) In the May 11, 1998 elections, petitioner Joseph Ejercito Estrada was
elected President while respondent Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was

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 elected Vice-President. Some ten (10) million Filipinos voted for the
petitioner believing he would rescue them from life's adversity. Both
petitioner and the respondent were to serve a six-year term
commencing on June 30, 1998.

(4) From the beginning of his term, however, petitioner was plagued by a
plethora of problems that slowly but surely eroded his popularity. His
sharp descent from power started on October 4, 2000. Ilocos Sur
Governor, Luis "Chavit" Singson, a longtime friend of the petitioner,
went on air and accused the petitioner, his family and friends of
receiving millions of pesos from jueteng lords. The exposẻ
immediately ignited reactions of rage.

(5) The next day, October 5, 2000, Senator Teo sto Guingona, Jr., then
the Senate Minority Leader, took the oor and delivered a ery
privilege speech entitled "I Accuse." He accused the petitioner of
receiving some P220 million in jueteng money from Governor Singson
from November 1998 to August 2000. He also charged that the
petitioner took from Governor Singson P70 million on excise tax on
cigarettes intended for Ilocos Sur. The privilege speech was referred
by then Senate President Franklin Drilon, to the Blue Ribbon
Committee (then headed by Senator Aquilino Pimentel) and the
Committee on Justice (then headed by Senator Renato Cayetano) for
joint investigation.

(6) The House of Representatives did no less. The House Committee on

Public Order and Security, then headed by Representative Roilo
Golez, decided to investigate the exposẻ of Governor Singson. On the
other hand, Representatives Heherson Alvarez, Ernesto Herrera and
Michael Defensor spearheaded the move to impeach the petitioner.

(7) Calls for the resignation of the petitioner lled the air. On October 11,
Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin issued a pastoral statement in behalf
of the Presbyteral Council of the Archdiocese of Manila, asking
petitioner to step down from the presidency as he had lost the moral
authority to govern. Two days later or on October 13, the Catholic
Bishops Conference of the Philippines joined the cry for the
resignation of the petitioner. Four days later, or on October 17, former
President Corazon C. Aquino also demanded that the petitioner take
the "supreme self-sacri ce" of resignation. Former President Fidel
Ramos also joined the chorus. Early on, or on October 12, respondent
Arroyo resigned as Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and
Services and later asked for petitioner's resignation. However,
petitioner strenuously held on to his o ce and refused to resign.

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(8) The heat was on. On November 1, four (4) senior economic advisers,
members of the Council of Senior Economic Advisers, resigned. They
were Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, former Prime Minister Cesar
Virata, former Senator Vicente Paterno and Washington Sycip. On
November 2, Secretary Mar Roxas II also resigned from the
Department of Trade and Industry. On November 3, Senate President
Franklin Drilon, and House Speaker Manuel Villar, together with some
47 representatives defected from the ruling coalition, Lapian ng
Masang Pilipino.

(9) The month of November ended with a big bang. In a tumultuous

session on November 13, House Speaker Villar transmitted the
Articles of Impeachment signed by 115 representatives, or more than
1/3 of all the members of the House of Representatives to the Senate.
This caused political convulsions in both houses of Congress. Senator
Drilon was replaced by Senator Pimentel as Senate President.
Speaker Villar was unseated by Representative Fuentebella. On
November 20, the Senate formally opened the impeachment trial of
the petitioner. Twenty-one (21) senators took their oath as judges with
Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide, Jr., presiding.

(10)The political temperature rose despite the cold December. On

December 7, the impeachment trial started. The battle royale was
fought by some of the marquee names in the legal profession.
Standing as prosecutors were then House Minority Floor Leader
Feliciano Belmonte and Representatives Joker Arroyo, Wigberto
Tañada, Sergio Apostol, Raul Gonzales, Oscar Moreno, Salacnib
Baterina, Roan Libarios, Oscar Rodriguez, Clavel Martinez and
Antonio Nachura. They were assisted by a battery of private
prosecutors led by now Secretary of Justice Hernando Perez and now
Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo. Serving as defense counsel were
former Chief Justice Andres Narvasa, former Solicitor General and
Secretary of Justice Estelito P. Mendoza, former City Fiscal of Manila
Jose Flaminiano, former Deputy Speaker of the House Raul Daza,
Atty. Siegfried Fortun and his brother, Atty. Raymund Fortun. The day
to day trial was covered by live TV and during its course enjoyed the
highest viewing rating. Its high and low points were the constant
conversational piece of the chattering classes. The dramatic point of
the December hearings was the testimony of Clarissa Ocampo, senior
vice president of Equitable-PCI Bank. She testi ed that she was one
foot away from petitioner Estrada when he a xed the signature "Jose
Velarde" on documents involving a P500 million investment agreement
with their bank on February 4, 2000.

(11)After the testimony of Ocampo, the impeachment trial was adjourned

in the spirit of Christmas. When it resumed on January 2, 2001, more

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 bombshells were exploded by the prosecution. On January 11, Atty.
Edgardo Espiritu who served as petitioner's Secretary of Finance took
the witness stand. He alleged that the petitioner jointly owned BW
Resources Corporation with Mr. Dante Tan who was facing charges of
insider trading. Then came the fateful day of January 16, when by a
vote of 11-10 the senator-judges ruled against the opening of the
second envelope which allegedly contained evidence showing that
petitioner held P3.3 billion in a secret bank account under the name
"Jose Velarde." The public and private prosecutors walked out in
protest of the ruling. In disgust, Senator Pimentel resigned as Senate
President. The ruling made at 10:00 p.m. was met by a spontaneous
outburst of anger that hit the streets of the metropolis. By midnight,
thousands had assembled at the EDSA Shrine and speeches full of
sulphur were delivered against the petitioner and the eleven (11)
senators.

(12)On January 17, the public prosecutors submitted a letter to Speaker

Fuentebella tendering their collective resignation. They also led their
Manifestation of Withdrawal of Appearance with the impeachment
tribunal. Senator Raul Roco quickly moved for the inde nite
postponement of the impeachment proceedings until the House of
Representatives shall have resolved the issue of resignation of the
public prosecutors. Chief Justice Davide granted the motion.

(13)January 18 saw the high velocity intensi cation of the call for
petitioner's resignation. A 10-kilometer line of people holding lighted
candles formed a human chain from the Ninoy Aquino Monument on
Ayala Avenue in Makati City to the EDSA Shrine to symbolize the
people's solidarity in demanding petitioner's resignation. Students and
teachers walked out of their classes in Metro Manila to show their
concordance. Speakers in the continuing rallies at the EDSA Shrine,
all masters of the physics of persuasion, attracted more and more
people.

(14)On January 19, the fall from power of the petitioner appeared
inevitable. At 1:20 p.m., the petitioner informed Executive Secretary
Edgardo Angara that General Angelo Reyes, Chief of Sta of the
Armed Forces of the Philippines, had defected. At 2:30 p.m.,
petitioner agreed to the holding of a snap election for President where
he would not be a candidate. It did not di use the growing crisis. At
3:00 p.m., Secretary of National Defense Orlando Mercado and
General Reyes, together with the chiefs of all the armed services went
to the EDSA Shrine. In the presence of former Presidents Aquino and
Ramos and hundreds of thousands of cheering demonstrators,
General Reyes declared that "on behalf of Your Armed Forces, the
130,000 strong members of the Armed Forces, we wish to announce
that we are withdrawing our support to this government.” A little later,

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 PNP Chief, Director General Pan lo Lacson and the major service
commanders gave a similar stunning announcement. Some Cabinet
secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and bureau chiefs
quickly resigned from their posts. Rallies for the resignation of the
petitioner exploded in various parts of the country. To stem the tide of
rage, petitioner announced he was ordering his lawyers to agree to the
opening of the highly controversial second envelope. There was no
turning back the tide. The tide had become a tsunami.

(15)January 20 turned to be the day of surrender. At 12:20 a.m., the rst

round of negotiations for the peaceful and orderly transfer of power
started at Malacañang Mabini Hall, O ce of the Executive Secretary.
Secretary Edgardo Angara, Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Ramon
Bagatsing, Political Adviser Angelito Banayo, Asst. Secretary Boying
Remulla, and Atty. Macel Fernandez, head of the Presidential
Management Sta , negotiated for the petitioner. Respondent Arroyo
was represented by now Executive Secretary Renato de Villa,
Secretary of Finance Alberto Romulo and Secretary of Justice
Hernando Perez. Outside the palace, there was a brief encounter at
Mendiola between pro and anti-Estrada protesters which resulted in
stone-throwing and caused minor injuries. The negotiations consumed
all morning until the news broke out that Chief Justice Davide would
administer the oath to respondent Arroyo at high noon at the EDSA
Shrine.

(16)At about 12:00 noon, Chief Justice Davide administered the oath to
respondent Arroyo as President of the Philippines. At 2:30 p.m.,
petitioner and his family hurriedly left Malacañang Palace. He issued
the following press statement:

"20 January 2001

STATEMENT FROM PRESIDENT JOSEPH EJERCITO ESTRADA

At twelve o'clock noon today, Vice President Gloria Macapagal-

Arroyo took her oath as President of the Republic of the
Philippines. While along with many other legal minds of our
country, I have strong and serious doubts about the legality and
constitutionality of her proclamation as President, I do not wish to
be a factor that will prevent the restoration of unity and order in
our civil society. It is for this reason that I now leave Malacañang
Palace, the seat of the presidency of this country, for the sake of
peace and in order to begin the healing process of our nation. I
leave the Palace of our people with gratitude for the opportunities
given to me for service to our people. I will not shirk from any
future challenges that may come ahead in the same service of
our country. I call on all my supporters and followers to join me in

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 to promotion of a constructive national spirit of reconciliation and

solidarity.

May the Almighty bless our country and beloved people.

MABUHAY!
(Sgd.) JOSEPH EJERCITO ESTRADA”

(17)It also appears that on the same day, January 20, 2001, he signed the
following letter.

“Sir:
By virtue of the provisions of Section 11, Article VII of the
Constitution, I am hereby transmitting this declaration that I am
unable to exercise the powers and duties of my office. By
operation of law and the Constitution, the Vice-President shall be
the Acting President.

(Sgd.) JOSEPH EJERCITO ESTRADA”

(18)A copy of the letter was sent to former Speaker Fuentebella at 8:30
a.m. on January 20. Another copy was transmitted to Senate President
Pimentel on the same day although it was received only at 9:00 p.m.

(19)On January 22, the Monday after taking her oath, respondent Arroyo
immediately discharged the powers the duties of the Presidency. On
the same day, this Court issued the following Resolution in
Administrative Matter No. 01-1-05-SC, to wit:

"A.M. No. 01-1-05-SC — In re: Request of Vice President Gloria

Macapagal-Arroyo to Take her Oath of Office as President of the
Republic of the Philippines before the Chief Justice. Acting on the
urgent request of Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to be
sworn in as President of the Republic of the Philippines,
addressed to the Chief Justice and confirmed by a letter to the
Court, dated January 20, 2001, which request was treated as an
administrative matter, the court Resolve unanimously to confirm
the authority given by the twelve (12) members of the Court then
present to the Chief Justice on January 20, 2001 to administer
the oath of office of Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as
President of the Philippines, at noon of January 20, 2001. This1âwphi1.nêt

resolution is without prejudice to the disposition of any justiciable

case that may be filed by a proper party.”

(20)Respondent Arroyo appointed members of her Cabinet as well as

ambassadors and special envoys. Recognition of respondent Arroyo's

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 government by foreign governments swiftly followed. On January 23,

in a reception or vin d' honneur at Malacañang, led by the Dean of the
Diplomatic Corps, Papal Nuncio Antonio Franco, more than a hundred
foreign diplomats recognized the government of respondent Arroyo.
US President George W. Bush gave the respondent a telephone call
from the White House conveying US recognition of her government.

(21)On January 24, Representative Feliciano Belmonte was elected new

Speaker of the House of Representatives. The House then passed
Resolution No. 175 "expressing the full support of the House of
Representatives to the administration of Her Excellency, Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, President of the Philippines." It also approved
Resolution No. 176 "expressing the support of the House of
Representatives to the assumption into office by Vice President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo as President of the Republic of the Philippines,
extending its congratulations and expressing its support for her
administration as a partner in the attainment of the nation's goals
under the Constitution.”

(22)On January 26, the respondent signed into law the Solid Waste
Management Act. A few days later, she also signed into law the
Political Advertising ban and Fair Election Practices Act.

(23)On February 6, respondent Arroyo nominated Senator Teofisto

Guingona, Jr., as her Vice President. The next day, February 7, the
Senate adopted Resolution No. 82 confirming the nomination of
Senator Guingona, Jr. Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Juan
Ponce Enrile, and John Osmena voted "yes" with reservations, citing
as reason therefor the pending challenge on the legitimacy of
respondent Arroyo's presidency before the Supreme Court. Senators
Teresa Aquino-Oreta and Robert Barbers were absent. The House of
Representatives also approved Senator Guingona's nomination in
Resolution No. 178. Senator Guingona, Jr. took his oath as Vice
President two (2) days later.

(24)On February 7, the Senate passed Resolution No. 83 declaring that

the impeachment court is functus officio and has been terminated.
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago stated "for the record" that she
voted against the closure of the impeachment court on the grounds
that the Senate had failed to decide on the impeachment case and that
the resolution left open the question of whether Estrada was still
qualified to run for another elective post.

2. The GMA Controversies

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a) The Fertilizer Fund Scam (Republic of the Philippines v. Jocelyn

Bolante G.R. No. 186717)

(1) In April 2005, the Philippine National Bank (PNB) submitted to the
Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) a series of suspicious
transaction reports involving the accounts of Livelihood Corporation
(LIVECOR), Molugan Foundation (Molugan), and Assembly of
Gracious Samaritans, Inc.(AGS). According to the reports, LIVECOR
transferred to Molugan a total amount of ₱172.6 million in a span of
15 months from 2004 to 2005. On 30 April 2004, LIVECOR transferred
₱40 million to AGS, which received another P38 million from Molugan
on the same day. Curiously, AGS returned the P38 million to Molugan
also on the same day.

(2) The transactions were reported '"suspicious" because they had no

underlying legal or trade obligation, purpose or economic justi cation;
nor were they commensurate to the business or nancial capacity of
Molugan and AGS, which were both lowly capitalized at P50,000
each. In the case of Molugan, Samuel S. Bombeo, who holds the
position of president, secretary and treasurer, is the lone signatory to
the account. In the case of AGS, Samuel S. Bombeo shares this
responsibility with Ariel Panganiban. 11

(3) On 7 March 2006, the Senate furnished the AMLC a copy of its
Committee Report No. 54 prepared by the Committee on Agriculture
and Food and the Committee on Accountability of Public O cers and
Investigations.

(4) Committee Report No. 54 narrated that former Undersecretary of

Agriculture Jocelyn I. Bolante (Bolante) requested the Department of
Budget and Management to release to the Department of Agriculture
the amount of ₱728 million for the purchase of farm inputs under the
Ginintuang Masaganang Ani Program. This amount was used to
purchase liquid fertilizers from Freshan Philippines, Inc., which were
then distributed to local government units and congressional districts
beginning January 2004. Based on the Audit Report prepared by the
Commission on Audit (COA), the use of the funds was characterized
by massive irregularities, overpricing, violations of the procurement
law and wanton wastage of scarce government resources.

(5) Committee Report No. 54 also stated that at the time that he served
as Undersecretary of Agriculture, Bolante was also appointed by
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as acting Chairman of LIVECOR.

(6) The AMLC issued Resolution No. 75 nding probable cause to believe
that the accounts of LIVECOR, Molugan and AGS - the subjects of the

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 suspicious transaction reports submitted by PNB - were related to
what became known as the "fertilizer fund scam."

b) The “Hello Garci” tapes Scandal (Garcillano v. House of

Representatives, G.R. NO. 170338 : December 23, 2008)

(1) Tapes ostensibly containing a wiretapped conversation purportedly

between the President of the Philippines and a high-ranking o cial of
the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) surfaced. They captured
unprecedented public attention and thrust the country into a
controversy that placed the legitimacy of the present administration
on the line, and resulted in the near-collapse of the Arroyo
government. The tapes, notoriously referred to as the "Hello Garci"
tapes, allegedly contained the President's instructions to COMELEC
Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to manipulate in her favor results of
the 2004 presidential elections. These recordings were to become the
subject of heated legislative hearings conducted separately by
committees of both Houses of Congress.

c) The Oakwood Mutiny ( Gonzales v. Abaya; G.R. No. 164007 August

10, 2006)

(1) On July 26, 2003, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo received

intelligence reports that some members of the AFP, with high-powered
weapons, had abandoned their designated places of assignment.
Their aim was to destabilize the government. The President then
directed the AFP and the Philippine National Police (PNP) to track and
arrest them.

(2) On July 27, 2003 at around 1:00 a.m., more than 300 heavily armed
junior o cers and enlisted men of the AFP – mostly from the elite
units of the Army’s Scout Rangers and the Navy’s Special Warfare
Group – entered the premises of the Oakwood Premier Luxury
Apartments on Ayala Avenue, Makati City. They disarmed the security
guards and planted explosive devices around the building.

(3) Led by Navy Lt. (SG) Antonio Trillanes IV, the troops sported red
armbands emblazoned with the emblem of the "Magdalo" faction of
the Katipunan. The troops then, through broadcast media, announced
their grievances against the administration of President Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo, such as the graft and corruption in the military, the
illegal sale of arms and ammunition to the "enemies" of the State, and
the bombings in Davao City intended to acquire more military
assistance from the US government. They declared their withdrawal of
support from their Commander-in-Chief and demanded that she
resign as President of the Republic. They also called for the

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 resignation of her cabinet members and the top brass of the AFP and
PNP.

(4) About noontime of the same day, President Arroyo issued

Proclamation No. 427 declaring a state of rebellion, followed by
General Order No. 4 directing the AFP and PNP to take all necessary
measures to suppress the rebellion then taking place in Makati City.
She then called the soldiers to surrender their weapons at ve o’clock
in the afternoon of that same day.

(5) In order to avoid a bloody confrontation, the government sent

negotiators to dialogue with the soldiers. The aim was to persuade
them to peacefully return to the fold of the law. After several hours of
negotiation, the government panel succeeded in convincing them to
lay down their arms and defuse the explosives placed around the
premises of the Oakwood Apartments. Eventually, they returned to
their barracks.

(6) A total of 321 soldiers, including petitioners herein, surrendered to the

authorities.

3. P-NOY

a) The Impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona (G.R. No. 200242 

July 17, 2012 CHIEF JUSTICE RENATO C. CORONA, Petitioner, vs.
SENATE OF THE PHILIPPINES sitting as an IMPEACHMENT COURT)

(1) On December 12, 2011, a caucus was held by the majority bloc of the
HOR during which a veri ed complaint for impeachment against
petitioner was submitted by the leadership of the Committee on
Justice. After a brief presentation, on the same day, the complaint was
voted in session and 188 Members signed and endorsed it, way
above the one-third vote required by the Constitution.

(2) On December 13, 2011, the complaint was transmitted to the Senate
which convened as an impeachment court the following day,
December 14, 2011.

(3) On December 15, 2011, petitioner received a copy of the complaint

charging him with culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of
public trust and graft and corruption, allegedly committed as follows:

ARTICLE I

RESPONDENT BETRAYED THE PUBLIC TRUST THROUGH HIS

T R A C K R E C O R D M A R K E D B Y PA R T I A L I T Y A N D

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 SUBSERVIENCE IN CASES INVOLVING THE ARROYO
ADMINISTRATION FROM THE TIME OF HIS APPOINTMENT AS
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE AND UNTIL HIS DUBIOUS
APPOINTMENT AS A MIDNIGHT CHIEF JUSTICE TO THE
PRESENT.

ARTICLE II

RESPONDENT COMMITTED CULPABLE VIOLATION OF THE

CONSTITUTION AND/OR BETRAYED THE PUBLIC TRUST
WHEN HE FAILED TO DISCLOSE TO THE PUBLIC HIS
STATEMENT OF ASSETS, LIABILITIES AND NET WORTH AS
REQUIRED UNDER SEC. 17, ART. XI OF THE 1987
CONSTITUTION.

It is provided for in Art. XI, Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution

that "a public o cer or employee shall, upon assumption of
o ce and as often thereafter as may be required by law, submit
a declaration under oath of his assets, liabilities, and net worth.
In the case of the President, the Vice-President, the Members of
the Cabinet, and other constitutional o ces, and o cers of the
armed forces with general or ag rank, the declaration shall be
disclosed to the public in the manner provided by law.”

Respondent failed to disclose to the public his statement of

assets, liabilities, and net worth as required by the Constitution.

It is also reported that some of the properties of Respondent are

not included in his declaration of his assets, liabilities, and net
worth, in violation of the anti-graft and corrupt practices act.

Respondent is likewise suspected and accused of having

accumulated ill-gotten wealth, acquiring assets of high values
and keeping bank accounts with huge deposits. It has been
reported that Respondent has, among others, a 300-sq. meter
apartment in a posh Mega World Property development at the
Fort in Taguig. Has he reported this, as he is constitutionally-
required under Art. XI, Sec. 17 of the Constitution in his
Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN)? Is this
acquisition sustained and duly supported by his income as a
public o cial? Since his assumption as Associate and
subsequently, Chief Justice, has he complied with this duty of
public disclosure?

ARTICLE III

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RESPONDENT COMMITTED CULPABLE VIOLATIONS OF THE
CONSTITUTION AND/OR BETRAYED THE PUBLIC TRUST BY
FAILING TO MEET AND OBSERVE THE STRINGENT
STANDARDS UNDER ART. VIII, SECTION 7 (3) OF THE
CONSTITUTION THAT PROVIDES THAT "[A] MEMBER OF THE
JUDICIARY MUST BE A PERSON OF PROVEN COMPETENCE,
INTEGRITY, PROBITY, AND INDEPENDENCE" IN ALLOWING
THE SUPREME COURT TO ACT ON MERE LETTERS FILED BY
A COUNSEL WHICH CAUSED THE ISSUANCE OF FLIP-
FLOPPING DECISIONS IN FINAL AND EXECUTORY CASES; IN
CREATING AN EXCESSIVE ENTANGLEMENT WITH MRS.
ARROYO THROUGH HER APPOINTMENT OF HIS WIFE TO
OFFICE; AND IN DISCUSSING WITH LITIGANTS REGARDING
CASES PENDING BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT.

ARTICLE IV

RESPONDENT BETRAYED THE PUBLIC TRUST AND/OR

COMMITTED CULPABLE VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION
WHEN HE BLATANTLY DISREGARDED THE PRINCIPLE OF
SEPARATION OF POWERS BY ISSUING A "STATUS QUO ANTE"
ORDER AGAINST THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN THE
CASE CONCERNING THE IMPEACHMENT OF THEN
OMBUDSMAN MERCEDITAS NAVARRO-GUTIERREZ.

ARTICLE V

RESPONDENT BETRAYED THE PUBLIC TRUST THROUGH

W A N T O N A R B I T R A R I N E S S A N D PA R T I A L I T Y I N
CONSISTENTLY DISREGARDING THE PRINCIPLE OF RES
JUDICATA IN THE CASES INVOLVING THE 16 NEWLY-CREATED
CITIES, AND THE PROMOTION OF DINAGAT ISLAND INTO A
PROVINCE.

ARTICLE VI

R E S P O N D E N T B E T R AY E D T H E P U B L I C T R U S T B Y
ARROGATING UNTO HIMSELF, AND TO A COMMITTEE HE
CREATED, THE AUTHORITY AND JURISDICTION TO
IMPROPERLY INVESTIGATE A JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME
COURT FOR THE PURPOSE OF EXCULPATING HIM. SUCH
AUTHORITY AND JURISDICTION IS PROPERLY REPOSED BY
THE CONSTITUTION IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
VIA IMPEACHMENT.

ARTICLE VII

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 RESPONDENT BETRAYED THE PUBLIC TRUST THROUGH HIS
PARTIALITY IN GRANTING A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING
ORDER (TRO) IN FAVOR OF FORMER PRESIDENT GLORIA
MACAPAGAL-ARROYO AND HER HUSBAND JOSE MIGUEL
ARROYO IN ORDER TO GIVE THEM AN OPPORTUNITY TO
ESCAPE PROSECUTION AND TO FRUSTRATE THE ENDS OF
JUSTICE, AND IN DISTORTING THE SUPREME COURT
DECISION ON THE EFFECTIVITY OF THE TRO IN VIEW OF A
CLEAR FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE CONDITIONS OF THE
SUPREME COURT’S OWN TRO. ARTICLE VIII RESPONDENT
BETRAYED THE PUBLIC TRUST AND/OR COMMITTED GRAFT
AND CORRUPTION WHEN HE FAILED AND REFUSED TO
ACCOUNT FOR THE JUDICIARY DEVELOPMENT FUND (JDF)
AND SPECIAL ALLOWANCE FOR THE JUDICIARY (SAJ)
COLLECTIONS.

(4) With all these allegations, the Chief Justice is impeached.

b) Disbursement Acceleration Program (G.R. No. 209287, July 1, 2014

MARIA CAROLINA P. ARAULLO, CHAIRPERSON, BAGONG ALYANSANG
MAKABAYAN vs.BENIGNO SIMEON C. AQUINO III, PRESIDENT OF THE
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES)

(1) On September 25, 2013, Sen. Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada delivered a

privilege speech in the Senate of the Philippines to reveal that some
Senators, including himself, had been allotted an additional ₱50
Million each as "incentive" for voting in favor of the impeachment of
Chief Justice Renato C. Corona.

(2) Responding to Sen. Estrada’s revelation, Secretary Florencio Abad of

the DBM issued a public statement entitled Abad: Releases to
Senators Part of Spending Acceleration Program, explaining that the
funds released to the Senators had been part of the DAP, a program
designed by the DBM to ramp up spending to accelerate economic
expansion. He clari ed that the funds had been released to the
Senators based on their letters of request for funding; and that it was
not the rst time that releases from the DAP had been made because
the DAP had already been instituted in 2011 to ramp up spending
after sluggish disbursements had caused the growth of the gross
domestic product (GDP) to slow down. He explained that the funds
under the DAP were usually taken from (1) unreleased appropriations
under Personnel Services; (2) unprogrammed funds; (3) carry-over
appropriations unreleased from the previous year; and (4) budgets for
slow-moving items or projects that had been realigned to support
faster-disbursing projects.

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 (3) The DBM soon came out to claim in its website that the DAP releases
had been sourced from savings generated by the Government, and
from unprogrammed funds; and that the savings had been derived
from (1) the pooling of unreleased appropriations, like unreleased
Personnel Services appropriations that would lapse at the end of the
year, unreleased appropriations of slow-moving projects and
discontinued projects per zero based budgeting ndings; and (2) the
withdrawal of unobligated allotments also for slow-moving programs
and projects that had been earlier released to the agencies of the
National Government.

(4) The DBM listed the following as the legal bases for the DAP’s use of
savings, namely: (1) Section 25(5), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution,
which granted to the President the authority to augment an item for
his o ce in the general appropriations law; (2) Section 49 (Authority to
Use Savings for Certain Purposes) and Section 38 (Suspension of
Expenditure Appropriations), Chapter 5, Book VI of Executive Order
(EO) No. 292 (Administrative Code of 1987); and (3) the General
Appropriations Acts (GAAs) of 2011, 2012 and 2013, particularly their
provisions on the (a) use of savings; (b) meanings of savings and
augmentation; and (c) priority in the use of savings.

(5) As for the use of unprogrammed funds under the DAP, the DBM cited
as legal bases the special provisions on unprogrammed fund
contained in the GAAs of 2011, 2012 and 2013.

(6) The revelation of Sen. Estrada and the reactions of Sec. Abad and the
DBM brought the DAP to the consciousness of the Nation for the rst
time, and made this present controversy inevitable. That the issues
against the DAP came at a time when the Nation was still seething in
anger over Congressional pork barrel – "an appropriation of
government spending meant for localized projects and secured solely
or primarily to bring money to a representative’s district" – excited the
Nation as heatedly as the pork barrel controversy.

4. DUTERTE

a) Declaration of Martial Law (Justice Carpio’s Dissenting Opinion in G.R.

231658)

(1) On April 2016, the [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's] weekly newsletter,
Al Naba, announced the appointment of Abu Sayyaf leader [Isnilon]
Hapilon as the emir or leader of all ISIS forces in the Philippines. xxx.

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 (2) On 22 to 25 April 2017, the rebel group, led by Hapilon, engaged in
armed o ensives against the military in Piagapo, Lanao del Sur. The
government o ensives, which involved a combination of ground
assaults and airstrikes, forced the rebel group to ee to Marawi City.

(3) Military forces spotted Hapilon in Marawi City sometime in early May
2017. Speci cally, on 18 May 2017, intelligence reports revealed that
the ISIS-inspired local rebel groups were planning to raise the ISIS ag
at the provincial capitol. x x x.

(4) On 23 May 2017, Hapilon was seen at the safe house of the ISIS-
inspired local rebel groups in Barangay Basak Malutlut, Marawi City. A
joint military and police operation to serve a warrant of arrest and to
capture Hapilon and the Maute Group operational leaders for
kidnapping for ransom was initiated. The focused military operation
started with an encounter at about 1:30 in the afternoon between
government forces and ISIS-inspired local rebel group members. This
was followed by a series of encounters throughout the day in di erent
parts of Marawi City. x x x x

(5) The rebel groups launched an overwhelming and unexpected

o ensive against government troops. Multitudes numbering about ve
hundred (500) armed men marched along the main streets of Marawi
and swiftly occupied strategic positions throughout the city. Snipers
positioned themselves atop buildings and began shooting at
government troops. The ISIS-inspired local rebel groups were also
equipped with rocket-propelled grenades ("RPG") and ammunition for
high-powered assault ri es.

(6) The ISIS-inspired local rebel groups occupied the Philhealth O ce

and Salam Hospital in Barangay Lilod. They burned three (3) buildings:
the Marawi City Jail, Landbank Moncado Branch, and Senator Ninoy
Aquino Foundation College. They also kidnapped and killed innocent
civilians. In their rampage, the rebel groups brandished the black ISIS
ag and hoisted it in the locations that they occupied.

(7) On the night of 23 May 2017, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte

(President Duterte) issued Proclamation No. 216, declaring a state of
martial law and suspending the privilege of the writ in the whole of
Mindanao. The full text of Proclamation No. 2 l 6, signed by President
Duterte and attested by Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea
reads:

PROCLAMATION NO. 216

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 DECLARING A STATE OF MARTIAL LAW AND SUSPENDING
THE PRIVILEGE OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS IN THE
WHOLE OF MINDANAO

WHEREAS, Section 18 Article VII of the Constitution provides

that "x x x In case of invasion or rebellion, when the public safety
requires it, he (the President) 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 x x x”;

WHEREAS, Article 134 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended

by R.A. No. 6968, provides that "the crime of rebellion or
insurrection is committed by rising and taking arms against the
Government for the purpose of removing from the allegiance to
said Government or its laws, the territory of the Republic of the
Philippines or ay part thereof, of any body of land, naval or other
armed forces, or depriving the Chief Executive or the Legislature,
wholly or partially, of any of their powers or prerogatives”;

WHEREAS, part of the reasons for the issuance of Proclamation

No. 55 was the series of violent acts committed by the Maute
terrorist group such as the attack on the military outpost in Butig,
Lanao del Sur in February 2016, killing and wounding several
soldiers, and the mass jailbreak in Marawi City in August 2016,
freeing their arrested comrades and other detainees;

WHEREAS, today, 23 May 201 7, the same Maute terrorist group

has taken over a hospital in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur,
established several checkpoints within the City, burned down
·Certain government and private facilities and in icted casualties
on the part of Government forces, and started ying the ag of
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in several areas, thereby
openly attempting to remove from the allegiance to the Philippine
Government this part of Mindanao and deprive the Chief
Executive of his powers and prerogatives to enforce the laws of
the land and to maintain public order and safety in Mindanao,
constituting the crime of rebellion; and

WHEREAS, this recent attack shows the capability of the Maute

group and other rebel groups to sow terror, and cause death and
damage to property not only in Lanao del Sur but also in other
parts of Mindanao.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, RODRIGO ROA DUTERTE, President of

the Republic of the Philippines by virtue of the powers vested in

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 me by the Constitution and by law, do hereby proclaim as
follows:

SECTION 1. There is hereby declared a state of martial law in the

Mindanao group of islands for a period not exceeding sixty days,
e ective as of the date hereof.

SECTION 2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall

likewise be suspended in the aforesaid area for the duration of
the state of martial law.

DONE, in the Russian Federation, this 23rd day of May in the

year of our Lord[,] Two Thousand and Seventeen.

(8) On 25 May 2017, President Duterte submitted his Report to Congress

in accordance with Section 18, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution,
which states in part that "[w]ithin forty-eight hours from the
proclamation of martial law or the suspension of the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus, the President shall submit a report in person or
in writing to the Congress." In his Report, President Duterte presented
the following justi cations for imposing martial law and suspending
the privilege of the writ in the whole of Mindanao:

(a) Pursuant to Section 18, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution, I am

submitting hereunder the Report relative to Proclamation No. 216
dated 23 May 2017 entitled, "Declaring a State of Martial Law and
Suspending the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the
Whole of Mindanao," after nding that lawless armed groups have
taken up arms and committed public uprising against the duly
constituted government and against the people of Mindanao, for
the purpose of removing Mindanao - starting with the City of
Marawi, Lanao del Sur - from its allegiance to the Government and
its laws and depriving the Chief Executive of his powers and
prerogatives to enforce the laws of the land and to maintain public
order and safety in Mindanao, to the great damage, prejudice, and
detriment of the people therein and the nation as a whole. The text
of Proclamation No. 216 reads: x x x x

i) Mindanao has been the hotbed of violent extremism and a

brewing rebellion for decades. In more recent years, we have
witnessed the perpetration of numerous acts of violence
challenging the authority of the duly constituted authorities, i.e.,
the Zamboanga siege, the Davao bombing, the Mamasapano
carnage, and the bombings in Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sulu,
and Basilan, among others. Two armed groups have gured

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 prominently in all these, namely, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)
and the ISIS-backed Maute Group.

(9) On 23 May 2017, a government operation to capture Isnilon Hapilon,

senior leader of the ASG, and Maute Group operational leaders,
Abdullah and Omarkhayam Maute, was confronted with armed
resistance which escalated into open hostility against the government.
Through these groups' armed siege and acts of violence directed
towards civilians and government authorities, institutions and
establishments, they were able to take control of major social,
economic, and political foundations of Marawi City which led to its
paralysis. This sudden taking of control was intended to lay the
groundwork for the eventual establishment of a DAESH wilayat or
province in Mindanao.

(10)Based on veri ed intelligence reports, the Maute Group, as of the end

of 2016, consisted of around two hundred sixty-three (263) members,
fully armed and prepared to wage combat in furtherance of its aims.
The group chie y operates in the province of Lanao del Sur, but has
extensive networks and linkages with foreign and local armed groups
such as the Jemaah Islamiyah, Mujahidin Indonesia Timur and the
ASG. It adheres to the ideals being espoused by DAESH, as
evidenced by, among others, its publication of a video footage
declaring its allegiance to the DAESH. Reports abound that foreign-
based terrorist groups, the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in
particular, as well as illegal drug money, provide nancial and
logistical support to the Maute Group.

(11)The events commencing on 23 May 2017 put on public display the

groups' clear intention to establish an Islamic State and their
capability to deprive the duly constituted authorities - the President,
foremost - of their powers and prerogatives.

(12)At 1400H members of the Maute Group and ASG, along with their
sympathizers, commenced their attack on various facilities -
government and privately owned - in the City of Marawi.

(13)At 1600H around fty (50) armed criminals assaulted Marawi City Jail
being managed by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology
(BJMP).

(14)The Maute Group forcibly entered the jail facilities, destroyed its main
gate, and assaulted on-duty" personnel. BJMP personnel were
disarmed, tied, and/or locked inside the cells.

(15)The group took cellphones, personnel-issued rearms, and vehicles

(i.e., two [2] prisoner vans and private vehicles).

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 (16)By 1630H, the supply of power into Marawi City had been interrupted,
and sporadic gun ghts were heard and felt everywhere. By evening,
the power outage had spread citywide. (As of 24 May 2017, Marawi
City's electric supply was still cut o , plunging the city into total
black-out.)

(17)From 1800 to 1900H, the same members of the Maute Group

ambushed and burned the Marawi Police Station. A patrol car of the
Police Station was also taken.

(18)A member of the Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit was killed during
the takeover of the Marawi City Jail. The Maute Group facilitated the
escape of at least sixty-eight (68) inmates of the City Jail.

(19)The BJMP directed its personnel at the Marawi City and other
a ected areas to evacuate.

(20)By evening of 23 May 2017, at least three (3) bridges in Lanao del Sur,
namely, Lilod, Bangulo, and Sauiaran, fell under the control of these
groups. They threatened to bomb the bridges to pre-empt military
reinforcement.

(21)As of 2222H, persons connected with the Maute group had occupied
several areas in Marawi City, including Naga Street, Bangolo Street,
Mapandi, and Camp Keithly, as well as the following barangays:
Basak Malutlot, Mapandi, Saduc, Lilod Maday, Bangon, Saber,
Bubong, Marantao, Caloocan, Banggolo, Barionaga, and Abubakar.

(22)These lawless armed groups had likewise set up road blockades and
checkpoints at the Iligan City-Marawi City junction.

(23)Later in the evening, the Maute Group burned Dansalan College

Foundation, Cathedral of Maria Auxiliadora, the nun's quarters in the
church, and the Shia Masjid Moncada Colony. Hostages were taken
from the church.

(24)About ve (5) faculty members of Dansalan College Foundation had

been reportedly killed by the lawless groups.

(25)Other educational institutions were also burned, namely, Senator

Ninoy Aquino College Foundation and the Marawi Central Elementary
Pilot School.

(26)The Maute Group also attacked Amai Pakpak Hospital and hoisted
the DAESH ag there, among other several locations. As of 0600H of
24 May 2017, members of the Maute Group were seen guarding the

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 entry gates of the Amai Pakpak Hospital. They held hostage the
employees of the Hospital and took over the Phil-Health o ce located
thereat.

(27)The groups likewise laid siege to another hospital, Filipino-Libyan

Friendship Hospital, which they later set ablaze.

(28)Lawless armed groups likewise ransacked the Landbank of the

Philippines and commandeered one its armored vehicles.

(29)Latest information indicated that about seventy- ve percent (75%) of

Marawi City has been in ltrated by lawless armed groups composed
of members of the Maute Group and the ASG. As of the time of this
Report, eleven (11) members of the Armed Forces and the Philippine
National Police have been killed in action, while thirty- ve (35) others
have been seriously wounded.

(30)There are reports that these lawless armed groups are searching for
Christian communities in Marawi City to execute Christians. They are
also preventing Maranaos from leaving their homes and forcing young
male Muslims to join their groups.

(31)Based on various veri ed intelligence reports from the AFP and the
PNP, there exists a strategic mass action of lawless armed groups in
Marawi City, seizing public and private facilities, perpetrating killings
of government personnel, and committing armed uprising against and
open de ance of the government.

(32)These activities constitute not simply a display of force, but a clear

attempt to establish the groups' seat of power in Marawi City for their
planned establishment of a DAESH wilayat or province covering the
entire Mindanao.

(33)The cutting of vital lines for transportation and power; the recruitment
of young Muslims to further expand their ranks and strengthen their
force; the armed consolidation of their members throughout Marawi
City; the decimation of a segment of the city population who resist;
and the brazen display of DAESH ags constitute a clear,
pronounced, and unmistakable intent to remove Marawi City, and
eventually the rest of Mindanao, from its allegiance to the
Government.

b) The Quo Warranto Proceeding against Chief Justice Sereno

c) From November 1986 to June 1, 2006, or spanning a period of 20 years,

respondent served as a member of the faculty of the University of the
Philippines-College of Law (U.P. or U.P. College of Law), initially as a

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 temporary faculty member (from November 1986 to December 31, 1991)
and thereafter, as a permanent faculty member until her resignation
therefrom on June 1, 2006. As a regular faculty member, respondent was
paid by the month by U.P.

d) Based on the records of the U.P. Human Resources Development O ce

(U.P. HRD0), respondent was on o cial leave from the U.P. College of
Law for the following periods: June 1, 2000 - June 1, 2001, November 1,
2003 - June 1, 2004, November 1, 2004 - February 11, 2005, November
15, 2005 - May 31, 2001, May 31, 2002 - May 31, 2004 and October 31,
2004

e) While being employed at the U.P. College of Law, or from October 2003
to 2006, respondent was concurrently employed as legal counsel of the
Republic in two international arbitrations: (a) PIATCO v. Republic of the
Philippines and MIAA; and (b) Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services
Worldwide v. Republic ofthe Philippines (PIATCO cases). Incidentally, the
U.P. HRDO certi ed that there was no record on respondent's 201 le of
any permission to engage in limited practice of profession. Her
engagement as legal counsel for the Republic continued until 2009.

f) Despite having been employed at the U.P. College of Law from November
1986 to June 1, 2006, the record of the U.P. HRDO only contains the
Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) for 1985, 1990,
1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 2002, led by respondent.

g) On the other hand, the records of the Central Records Division of the
O ce of the Ombudsman yields that there is no SALN led by
respondent for calendar years 1999 to 2009 except for the SALN ending
December 1998 which was subscribed only in August 2003 and
transmitted by the U.P. HRDO to the Ombudsman only on December 16,
2003.

h) Belatedly, in respondent's Ad Cautelam Manifestation/Submission, she

attached a copy of her SALN for 1989 which she supposedly sourced
from the " ling cabinets" or "drawers of U.P."

i) Similarly, despite having been employed as legal counsel of various

government agencies from 2003 to 2009, there is likewise no showing
that she led her SALNs for these years, except for the SALN ending
December 31, 2009 which was unsubscribed and led before the O ce
of the Clerk of Court only on June 22, 2012. After having served as a
professor at the U.P. College of Law until 2006, and thereafter as
practitioner in various out ts including as legal counsel for the Republic
until 2009, the respondent submitted her application for the position of
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in July 2010.

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 j) In support of her application as Associate Justice, respondent submitted
to the O ce of Recruitment Selection and Nomination (ORSN) of the
Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) her SALN for the year 2006. This SALN for
2006 bears no stamp received by the U.P. HRDO and was signed on July
27, 2010. According to respondent, the JBC considered her nomination
for the position of Associate Justice as that of a private practitioner and
not as a government employee.

k) Only recently, in a letter to the ORSN dated February 2, 2018, likewise

attached to her Ad Cautelam Manifestation/Submission, respondent
would explain that such SALN was really intended to be her SALN as of
July 27, 2010. Respondent further explained during the Oral Arguments
that she merely downloaded the SALN form and forgot to erase the year
"2006" printed thereon and that she was not required by the ORSN to
submit a subscribed SALN.

l) Thus, as the certi cations executed by the U.P. HRDO, the Ombudsman
and the ORSN of the JBC stand, the only SALNs available on record and
led by respondent were those for the calendar years 1985, 1989, 1990,
1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 2002 or eleven (11)
SALNs led in her 20-year government service in U.P. No SALNs were
led from 2003 to 2006 when she was employed as legal counsel for the
Republic.

m) Neither was there a SALN led when she resigned from U.P. College of
Law as of June 1, 2006 and when she supposedly re-entered government
service as of August 16, 2010.

n) A month after, or on August 13, 2010, respondent was appointed by then

President Benigno C. Aquino III (President Aquino III) as Associate
Justice, and on August 16, 2010, respondent took her oath of o ce as
such.

o) When the position of the Chief Justice was declared vacant in 2012, the
JBC announced the opening for application and recommendation of the
position of Chief Justice. During the 2012 deliberations for the position of
the Chief Justice, the members of the JBC En Banc were Associate
Justice Diosdado M. Peralta (Justice Peralta) as Acting ex o cio
Chairman; Undersecretary Michael Frederick L. Musngi as ex o cio
member; Leila M. De Lima; Senator Francis Joseph G. Escudero and
Representative Niel Tupas as ex o cio members representing the
Congress; Justice Regino C. Hermosisima Jr. as regular member
representing the retired Supreme Court Justices; Justice Aurora Santiago
Lagman as regular member representing the Private Sector; Atty. Maria

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 Milagros N. Fernan-Cayosa as regular member representing the
Integrated Bar of the Philippines; and Atty. Jose V. ______________.

THE CASE

p) The remedy of quo warranto is vested in the people, and not in any
private individual or group, because disputes over title to public o ce are
viewed as a public question of governmental legitimacy and not merely a
private quarrel among rival claimants. xxx

q) While both impeachment and quo warranto may result in the ouster of the
public o cial, the two proceedings materially di er. At its most basic,
impeachment proceedings are political in nature, while an action for quo
warranto is judicial or a proceeding traditionally lodged in the courts. xxx

r) Aside from the di erence in their origin and nature, quo warranto and
impeachment may proceed independently of each other as these
remedies are distinct as to (1) jurisdiction (2) grounds, (3) applicable rules
pertaining to initiation, ling and dismissal, and (4) limitations. xxx

s) The term "quo warranto" is Latin for "by what authority." Therefore, as the
name suggests, quo warranto is a writ of inquiry. It determines whether
an individual has the legal right to hold the public o ce he or she
occupies. Thus, a quo warranto proceeding is the proper legal remedy to
determine the right or title to the contested public o ce or to oust the
holder from its enjoyment. In quo warranto proceedings referring to
o ces lled by election, what is to be determined is the eligibility of the
candidates elected, while in quo warranto proceedings referring to o ces
lled by appointment, what is determined is the legality of the
appointment. xxx

t) Respondent postulates that the ling of SALNs bear no relation to the

Constitutional quali cation of integrity. In so arguing, respondent loses
sight of the fact that the SALN requirement is imposed no less than by
the Constitution and made more emphatic by its accompanying laws and
its implementing rules and regulations. In other words, one who fails to
le his or her SALN violates the Constitution and the laws; and one who
violates the Constitution and the laws cannot rightfully claim to be a
person of integrity as such equation is theoretically and practically
antithetical.xxx

u) The ling of the SALN is so important for purposes of transparency and

accountability that failure to comply with such requirement may result not
only in dismissal from the public service but also in criminal liability. xxx

v) To recall, the record of the U.P. HRDO only contains respondent's SALNs
for the years 1985, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 2002.

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 Later, respondent produced a photocopy of her SALN for 1989 and
attached the same to her Ad Cautelam Manifestation/Submission. On the
other hand, the records of the Central Records Division of the O ce of
the Ombudsman yields "no SALN led by respondent except for the
SALN ending December 1998" which was subscribed only in August
2003 and transmitted by the U.P. HRDO to the Ombudsman only on
December 16, 2003. Further, despite having worked as legal counsel for
the Republic from 2003 to 2006 (up until 2009), there is no record that
respondent led her SALNs for that period.

w) Respondent could have easily dispelled doubts as to the ling or non-

ling of the unaccounted SALNs by presenting them before the Court.
Yet, respondent opted to withhold such information or such evidence, if
at all, for no clear -reason. Respondent likewise manifests having been
successful in retrieving most of the "missing" SALNs and yet withheld
presentation of such before the Court, except for a photocopy of her
1989 SALN submitted only in the morning of the Oral Argument and
allegedly sourced from the "drawers of U.P." Only in respondent's
Memorandum Ad Cautelam did she attach the SALNs she supposedly
recovered. But the SALNs so attached, except for the 1989 SALN, were
the same SALNs priorly o ered by the Republic. Other than o ering legal
or technical justi cations, respondent has not endeavored to convince
this Court of the existence of the still unaccounted SALNs. As she herself
stated in her July 23, 2012 letter to the JBC, only some, but not all, of her
SALNs are infeasible to retrieve. Thus, this Court is puzzled as to why
there has been no account of respondent's more recent SALNs,
particularly those from 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

x) WHEREFORE, the Petition for Quo Warranto is GRANTED. Respondent

Maria Lourdes P.A. Sereno is found DISQUALIFIED from and is hereby
adjudged GUILTY of UNLAWFULLY HOLDING and EXERCISING the
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE. Accordingly, Respondent Maria
Lourdes P. A. Sereno is OUSTED and EXCLUDED therefrom.

__________________________________________________

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This humble work is a compilation of the brilliance of the following individuals:

1. Supreme Court Justices whether past or present for their wisdom as revealed in
Supreme Court Decisions, which the author culled from the websites of Supreme
Court and LawPhil;

2. Father Joaquin Bernas’ book: Commentaries on 1987 Philippine Constitution as

cited by Aries Manguerra in his Political Law Reviewer;

3. Associate Justice Isagani Cruz’s book: Political Law as cited by Aries Manguerra in
his Political Law Reviewer;

4. Jovito Salonga’s memoir entitled “A Journey of Struggle and Hope”;

5. University of the Philippines 2015 Bar Reviewer in Political Law

6. Mr. Aries Manguerra for his Political Law Reviewer

To God be the glory!

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 PRELIM EXAMINATION

Name: ________________________________________________ Course and Sec:_______

II. Discuss the National Territory of the Philippines as regards to its (2 points each):

A. Territorial Sea

B. Contiguous Zone

C. Exclusive Economic Zone

III. Discuss the history of the natives of the Philippines (14 points)

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IV. What is the status of ancestral lands with regard to the claim of ownership of natives of the
Philippines? (10 points)

V. Discuss extensively the Philippine Bill of 1902. (20 points)

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 MIDTERM EXAMINATION

Name:________________________________________________ Course and Sec:________

I. Who are the citizens of the Philippines under the 1987 Constitution? (5 points)

II. What is the reason why the Japanese Forces invaded Philippines? Discuss. (5 points)

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III. Discuss: The Philippine Constitution: History of its Revolution: (Separate Opinion of Justice
Puno in the case of Republic v. Sandiganbaysn) (20 points)

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IV. Discuss the events that led to the signing of the Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement.
(10 points)

V. Discuss: “The Local Setting - from Spanish Times to the Present” (10 points)

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 FINAL EXAMINATION

Name: ______________________________________________ Course and Sec: ________

I. What is the reason why Martial Law was declared by President Ferdinand Marcos?
(5points)

II. Discuss extensively the events and underlying reason of the assassination of Benigno
Aquino III. (10 points)

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III. What is the reason why Martial Law was declared in Mindanao? (20 points)

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IV. Discuss the ouster of President Joseph Estrada. (10 points)

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V. What is Quo Warranto? What is the reason why Justices of the Supreme Court may be
removed because of this petition? (15 points)

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Nothing Follows

GOD bless

Misatshka

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