History Of The Philippine Constitution s553k

History of the Philippine Constitution and the Bill of Rights 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, specifically freedom from arbitrary action by officialdom 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.[133] With the Propaganda Movement having apparently failed to bring about effective 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 revolution.[134] While preparing for separation from Spain, representatives of the movement engaged in various constitutional projects that would reflect 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,[135] 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 ed by a competent court of authority.[136] The Biak-na-Bato Constitution was projected to have a life-span of two years, after which a final 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 fighting 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. A few months later, the Spanish-American war broke out in April 1898. Upon encouragement of American officials, 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.[137] 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 efforts was the Malolos Constitution which, as itted by Felipe Calderon who drafted it, was based on the constitutions of South American Republics[138] while the Bill of Rights was substantially a copy of the Spanish Constitution.[139] The Bill of Rights included among others, freedom of religion, freedom from arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, security of the domicile and of papers and effects 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.[140] This suggests that natural law was the source of these rights.[141] The Malolos Constitution was short-lived. It went into effect in January 1899, about two months before the ratification 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. On March 23, 1901, American forces captured Aguinaldo and a week later, he took his oath of allegiance to the United States.[142] 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.[143] (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 offense 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 ed 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 Charta of the Philippines and as a worthy rival of the Laws of the Indies. [144]

The inviolable rules of the Instruction were re-enacted almost exactly in the Philippine Bill of 1902,[145] an act which temporarily provided for the istration of the affairs of the

civil government in the Philippine Islands,[146] and in the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916,[147] 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.[148] 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,[149] 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.[150] 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.[151] (emphasis supplied)