Talk:Constitution of the Philippines

Initial discussion

This is a pointless article to which no other article links. Unless anyone is against it I will remove the content and/or put it on the delete list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.253.64.6 (talk) 07:29, 4 March 2002 (UTC)

Why is it pointless? We also have the US constitution, and nobody has suggested deleting that. And how do you know nothing links here? (The "Pages that link here" thing still isn't working properly.) --Zundark, 2002 Mar 4

The US constitution, it can be argued, has historical value. The Philippines one is a mid 1980s lash-up. It adds nothing to constitutional/government history - there is nothing new. If the introduction of the constitution is important, ok, but there is no need for the text of the constitution, salient points can be highlighted in a relevent article. While diskspace is cheap I see no need to fill it with items that will never be consulted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.253.64.6 (talk) 08:03, 4 March 2002 (UTC)

Moved

Moved back from The Philippine Constitution since Constitution of the Philippines is the proper title of the document. seav 22:10, 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Wikisource

I have the text from the 1899, 1935 and 1973 Constitutions. I am planning to put them at Wikisource. If you have objections post it here. Circa 1900 07:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Good idea! :) --Noypi380 13:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead then. Better complete the list by including the 1986 and the 1987 Constitutions. ScriptOriumTerminus (talk) 15:18, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Is a charter change page needed?

With all the talk and confusion in the news lately should thier be a "Constitution of the Philippines(Charter Change)" page added or at least a Stub:Phillippines(ChaCha) with some external links to it's PRO/CON web sites?

Mkouklis 10:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

That won't be necessary, deleted the bottom section too. This is not a place for "talk and confusion" anyway, that should be for the blogs. The external link for the constitutional change proponents is enough for now. :) --Noypi380 13:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually I disagree but I'm too lazy to create such a page hehehe --Howard the Duck 08:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Requesting at least an additional section for Charter Change efforts.. ;) Needsmorehotsauce (talk) 02:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It would probably be useful to have a subsection giving some info about how changes to the 1987 constitution might be effected. Without grubbing about for supporting sources, I'll say that my impression is that there is a lot of uncertainty about that, particularly about the question of whether the requisite congressional votes mentioned in Article XVII of the 1987 constitution are meant to be taken with each house voting separately (each house having equal say) or in a joint session of both houses with the individual votes of each of the the 24 Senators counting the same as the individual votes of each of the 200+ Representatives. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Expanded discussion on 1987 Constitution

I wrote an expanded discussion on the 1987 Constitution, including a brief background and explanation of its basic features. Considering that it is the Constitution currently in force, it would be useful to have a brief overview of what it says in Wikipedia. I steered clear though about the charter change provisions - the topic is too controversial and might need a separate page. I did add references at the end to the various pages already existing on that topic. --Anyo Niminus 16:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Post-WW-II constitutional situation should be covered here

I came to this page looking for info on the constitutional status of the Philippines in the period between the conclusion of WW-II and the adoption of the 1973 constitution. I did not find that info on this page. I believe that this page should contain this info.

I have read (somewhere -- sorry, I don't have a cite handy) that the 1943 constitution was revised after WW-II (though I have seen no details regarding the supposed revisions) and that revised constitution used until superseded by the 1973 constitution. I have also read, contrarily, various items which give me the impression that sometime after WW-II the 1943 constitution was discarded in favor of the earlier 1935 constitution (e.g., various court cases pertaining to citizenship status of PBA players born in the '60s and '70s having been decided using citizenship requirements from the 1935 constitution vs. those in the 1943 constitution), though I have never seen any reference how, when, and/or on what authority that reversion might have been made. I also note that neither Chanrobles nor Lawphil seem to mention the 1973 constitution at all. This should be covered here, I think -- hopefuly with a good reference citation. I will keep looking for info on this with a good reference to cite, but others are surely better equipped to address this than I. -- Boracay Bill 02:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Updated as requested. Gareon 06:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I carried some of that info over onto Philippine nationality law. -- Boracay Bill 10:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Memory Digest?

Is it about time we also add digest to different topics of laws so we can consolidate all of our resources build a strong bar review material? visit http://rllqph.tk 17:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Spanish Constitution

Can someone include the Himno the First Constitution in Spanish and English please? The Spanish version should be included.!!

Split "Historical Constitutions" into separate article?

I suggest that a separate article be created dealing with the history of previous Philippine constitutions. The 1987 Constitution should be the main focus of this article. But at present, the historical discussion of previous constitutions outweighs the discussion of the present 1987 Constitution. I can work on both articles, but I'd like a consensus first on this proposal. --Anyo Niminus (talk) 06:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

This I agree with. The main focus here should be on the current constitution and the history section has gotten too long. Further there needs more analysis on both. What title should a history article have? Something like Constitutional history of the Philippines like Constitutional history of Australia or Constitutional history of Colombia? I also note this Constitutional history of Canada and this List of documents from the constitutional history of Canada--Iloilo Wanderer (talk) 03:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Organic Act of 1902

May I suggest that the Organic Act of 1902 be included among the constitutions mentioned in the article. While it is an act of the US Congress, still, it complies with the basic elements of a constitution, such as the organization of government (including a legislature) and a bill of rights for the inhabitants of a territory. In the interregnum until the grant of limited autonomy and the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth, it was the basic law in the Philippine Islands. For comments, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rrcs law (talk • contribs) 03:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this. --Anyo Niminus (talk) 03:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds right (see Philippine Organic Act (1902). Perhaps Jones Law (the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916) as well. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:04, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Having seen no objection and per WP:SILENCE I've added this to the article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Rewritten section

I've boldly rewritten the section formerly headed "Malolos Congress" and renamed it "Malolos Constitution". Considering the topic of this article, and considering that a WP article about this constitution exists, it seemed to me better to focus on the constitution itself rather than on the body which adopted it. Also, I corrected an assertion that the constitution was written by the Revolutionary government. It was proclaimed on 20 January 1899, during the short-lived Dictatorial government. The Revolutionary government did not come into existence until 23 January. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Re the deleted portion above, I clearly had misread the 1899 proclamation date as 1898, while my mind was completely out of gear. The rewritten text in the article seems OK, though. I'm currently looking at the Malolos Congress article, and I'll probably revisit this rewritten section after I'm done with that. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:04, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Parliamentary Republic

The section on the Malolos Constitution writes that it "called for a Presidential form of government" - which is false. The Malolos Constitution called for a parliamentary republic in that it made the legislature the dominant department of government, with the executive powers vested in a President elected by a majority of the assembly of representatives. Members of the legislature were appointed by the President to head executive departments. The executive was in other words responsible to the legislature, just like in any parliamentary system. I'm correcting it accordingly. Boreanesia (talk) 08:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Vice Presidents role

I can not see in the article what the Vice President should do? 91.154.68.98 (talk) 11:07, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Still can not.91.154.68.98 (talk) 20:07, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

"Revolutionary means"?

The phrase "a president installed by revolutionary means through the People Power Revolution" sounds awfully POV to me, as the People Power Revolution consisted of marches and demonstrations. NewEnglandYankee (talk) 16:12, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Constitutionality of the 1987 Philippine constitution

WHETHER OR NOT THE 1987 PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION CONSTITUTIONAL

Couched in a legal issue, this commentary is a discourse on the technical significance of Section 8, Article XIV of the 1987 Philippine Constitution which provides as follows:

"This Constitution shall be promulgated in Filipino and [in] English and shall be translated into major regional languages, Arabic and Spanish."

As most fervently prayed, it is hoped this contributor merely lacked the skill in research that to the date of this writing, no official Filipino translation of the 1987 Philippine Constitution have so far been unearthed electronically or otherwise. While it is true there are existing translations from various sources as the Wikipedia, book shelves and websites are all wanting for a legitimate translation that is officially recognized by the Philippine Government. That is, one which text pursuant and in keeping with the existing "Balarilang Filipino".

Stated otherwise, it is unfortunate that to the date of this commentary, no official Filipino text of the 1987 Philippine Constitution exists. In like manner, it is equally unfortunate that the pertained Constitution, to date, has not been translated into major regional languages as well as in languages Arabic and Spanish. Thus the legal issue herein presented; Whether or not the 1987 Philippine Constitution lettered to be promulgated "in Filipino and English" (which should have been "xxx in Filipino and in English") constitutional considering it was promulgated only in English?

Promulgate [to promulgate], according to Black, is "to publish; to announce officially; to make public as important or obligatory; the formal act of announcing a statute or rule of court." That the 1987 Philippine Constitution have failed to promulgate the same in both languages Filipino and English raises the inquiry whether or not such failure tantamount to "non-promulgation" of the Philippine Constitution?

By "non-promulgation", the suggestion simply implies that the pertained constitution has not been legitimately "published; has not been announced officially; has not been made public as important or obligatory; that the act of announcing the constitutionality of the same has not been complied with"?

Hence the issue on constitutionality.

Trivial as may seem but then again... DURA LEX SED LEX

Ang komentaryo'ng ito ay pagbibigay pugay sa katutubo'ng dila ng nito'ng tinubua'ng lupa.

ScriptOriumTerminus (talk) 17:07, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 August 2018

The Infobox should be replaced by something like this:

Constitution of the Philippines Saligang Batas ng Pilipinas Konstitusyon ng Pilipinas
Overview
Jurisdiction	Philippines
Created	June 2 -October 12, 1986
Presented	October 15, 1986
Ratified	February 2, 1987
Date effective	February 2, 1987
System	Unitary presidential constitutional republic
Government structure
Branches	3
Chambers	Bicameral Congress
Executive	President of the Philippines
Judiciary	Supreme Court and in such lower courts as may be established by law.
History
First legislature	June 30, 1992
First executive	June 30, 1992
Amendments	Proposed Constitutional amendments to the 1987 Constitution
Location	Legislative Archives, Library and Museum, Batasang Pambansa Complex, Quezon City
Commissioned by	Revolutionary Government of Corazon Aquino
Author(s)	Constitutional Commission of 1986
Signatories	46 of the 50 commissioners
Supersedes	Presidential Proclamation No. 3

Please fix the infobox section of the article 203.87.133.130 (talk) 07:57, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done except I only put the first date you mentioned for the date created. CLCStudent (talk) 18:12, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

The requested proposal is still not properly fulfilled, the infobox of the article is still the same and not modified from being a document to a constitution infobox, there is already a special template for the constitution (Template:Infobox constitution). The article can be further improved if the infobox was properly arranged. Thank you. 203.87.133.145 (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done again with only first date created Danski454 (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

References

Split into daugher articles

Ideally, this article should exclusively discuss about the 1987 (current) constitution. The older constitutions have to be split into their own articles. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:58, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, does anyone knows if the Spaniards codified something like a constitution while they were here? Howard the Duck (talk) 16:11, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this has come onto my radar recently. We should have articles for the 1935, 1942, and 1973 constitutions. I am less sure about Biak-na-Bato or the 1986 constitution. There's no sources here to split with, but I've encountered a few sources mention various aspects. None however have mentioned a codified Spanish constitution specific to the Philippines. CMD (talk) 17:33, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

How about Wikisource:Provisional Constitution of the Philippines (1897)? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:04, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Also see pp 126-127 here. P. 127 asserts that the Spanish constitution was effective in the Philippines during the periods 1810-1813, 1820-1823, and 1834-1837 (I have not looked at this more closely than that). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:23, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The Spanish Constitution of 1812 (discussions on it began in 1810) applied to the Philippines during those periods, but I haven't seen much noting anything Philippine-specific outside of its inspiration of the illustrados. CMD (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I was referring to the colony-specific constitution. We can argue that the Philippines was under the constitution of the United States from 1898 to 1946. There must be some law that established offices in the Philippines. For example, the gobernadorcillos and Real Audencias. This could either be piecemeal (like each office has one law), or like a code like the Jones Law.

I guess we can write something about the Freedom Constitution as this was the "last" constitution before the current one. The Biak-na-bato one is harder to find sources on, but it can be argued that it is inherently notable. I suppose the various republics in Negros and Zamboanga had constitutions of their own. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

The United States does not extend its constitution to its territories even today, so I doubt they extended it to the Philippines during their rule. Under Spain governance was generally undertaken through royal decree, as exercised by the Governor. The Freedom Constitution doesn't seem to be treated as a proper constitution in any of the sources I've been reading recently, but as with all these topics if there is a sufficient body of sources to justify a standalone article with information that would be undue here then I'm easily swayed. CMD (talk) 16:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

The Freedom Constitution can either be considered a series of amendments of the 1973 constitution, or an entirely new constitution altogether, but there's reason to believe it can stand on its own article. Howard the Duck (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Lead section assertion re earliest constitution

The final para in the lead section needs work. It currently ends with "following its adoption.", begging the question, "adoption my what body?". I nearly edited this to say, "adoption as the founding document of the First Philippine Republic." but I see that, though the paragraph in question asserts that the Malolos Constitution was "The earliest constitution establishing a 'Philippine Republic'", the table in the Historical development section lists the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato as having established a de-facto Constitutional Republic. Perhaps this para ought to be eliminated in favor of a second para reading someting like the following:

Three other constitutions have effectively governed the country in its history: the 1935 Commonwealth Constitution, the 1973 Constitution and the 1986 Freedom Constitution. Two governments prior to 1935, the Republic of Biak-na-Bato and the First Philippine Republic, had the form of constitutional republic but had constitutions that were never fully implemented throughout the Philippines and did not establish states that were internationally recognized.

Discussion? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 15:59, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is a discussion that could and should be sidestepped by something that should have happened a long time ago: the creation of a separate "Constitutions in Philippine History" (or some similar title; I'm sure that's a long discussion), so that this artlce can focus exclusively on the present constitution. Neither the discussion of the present constitution nor the discussion of its historical antecedents is well-served by the present article structure. I feel that the awkward phrasing of that last para would be avoided in an "in history" article, as the nuanced approach usually taken to such articles means such an assertion would be avoided entirely. (Or hey, I could just be naive about the neutralness of historical articles.) - Batongmalake (talk) 17:03, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

That goes well beyond the scope of the above, but it seems reasonable. I took a quick look at how this is done for other countries, and I'm confused by (my terms here) former country vs. former constitution and how the Philippines fits there (thinking mainly of Mindanao and Sulu) governmentally, geographically, socially, and also considering that some (most) Philippine constitutions covered periods when the Philippines was not an independent country -- with the 1935 constitution bridging the transition to independence by years on both sides of the transition. I'm not a categorization maven, so I guess I'll let that lie. I Perhaps a list-of article similar to List of constitutions of Mexico fits with what you're suggesting. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:57, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Simply removing "following its adoption" may solve the immediate problem. As for other articles, as I mentioned in the section above I believe there is material for reasonable quality articles to be created, leaving this article to focus on the current constitution. That said, a summary would likely still be needed here. For such a summary, it would make sense to differentiate 1935 onwards, which entered into full force, and the Biak-na-Bato and Malolos constitutions, which were never really implemented. CMD (talk) 02:37, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I've done that here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:56, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Philippine Politics and Governance

Preamble 1-18 175.176.93.206 (talk) 07:54, 29 August 2022 (UTC)