PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will not get a term extension under the federal constitution to be proposed by the consultative committee, the group’s chairman, former Chief Justice Reynato Puno, said Monday.
The Con-Com will also push for the rights to compensation for damage to the environment and a stronger writ of kalikasan to be included in the proposed Bill of Rights, Puno said in a press briefing.
The panel currently thinks that the 1987 Constitution, including the term limits for President, will still apply during the transition to a federal government. This would force Duterte to step down in 2022 at the end of his current six-year term.
“The term limit in the 1987 Constitution holds…. The limits under the 1987 Constitution will still apply,” Puno said.
The Con-Com’s subcommittee on transitory provisions, which Puno chairs, will still vote on its proposed changes to term limits, the former top magistrade added.
Duterte has said he would leave the presidency earlier if the Philippines can change to a federal system of government from its current unitary form as early as 2020.
The President’s critics fear Charter change would include a term extension for the former Davao City mayor, the same fear aroused by previous administrations.
Meanwhile, changes to the bill of rights will allow Filipinos to hold the government accountable for damage to the environment, Puno said.
“It’s about time we constitutionalize this provision, this right of the people to a healthful environment. And we intend to do this by putting in all these self-executing provisions in the Bill of Rights,” he added.
The former chief justice said it would put the right to a healthy environment at par with the civil and political rights of the people, “meaning to say this right to a healthy environment will equally be demandable against the State and each agency.”
The Con-Com has yet to deliberate on the wording of the following rights to be proposed, including the right to clean air and water; right to a healthy environment and ecology; right to the preservation of ecosystems; right to be protected from activities that destroy the environment;
Right to sustainable development; right to compensation for damage to environment; recourse to courts for immediate protection; and a stronger writ of kalikasan that is not subject to withdrawal or revision by the Congress or the Supreme Court.
While Congress has come up with several environmental laws, including those on sanitation and mining, the Constitution itself is “silent on this right of our people against environmental degradation,” said the former top magistrate.
What the 1987 Charter does contain, Puno said, is limited to one sentence in Article II, Section 16: “The State shall protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature.”
Asked how these rights would apply to the current situation in Boracay Island, Puno said it was a lack of enforcing environmental laws.
“Given the situation in Boracay and in other areas as well, you can see that part of the problem is the lack of enforcement of our laws on our environment,” he said.
This lack of enforcement, Puno said, can be traced to the failure of local governments to enforce the relevant laws.
“If we constitutionalize this right to a good and healthy environment, you will be empowering the citizenry, the people to demand from the state, each agency, including the public health units to enforce these laws on the environment [and] correspondingly to hold them accountable for their failure to implement these relevant laws,” he said.
Puno expects less opposition to the environmental rights the Concom will propose, unlike those on political dynasties and term limits.
“I do not know how extensive the opposition will be, but I like to think that the intensity will be less, because at present we have had very good environmental laws coming from Congress,” he said.
The Concom will submit its proposals to the President by July and may be accepted or rejected by Congress.
