MANILA — The Consultative Committee (ConCom) tasked by President Rodrigo R. Duterte to review the 1987 Constitution has voted to unanimously revise parts of the Preamble under its proposed Constitution under a federal form of government to ensure that the proposed federal republic will be permanent and there will be no secession.
JUST IN: ConCom voted unanimously in favor of the proposed preamble of the new federal constitution. | via Dominique Guamos pic.twitter.com/PmguUda7aa
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More specifically, the ConCom wanted to prohibit secession under a federal system and make the nation “indissoluble, permanent, and eternal.”
“Our proposed Preamble proposes a union that is indissoluble, a federalism that is permanent, a bond that is eternal,” ConCom chairman and former chief justice Reynato Puno said in voting in favor of the revisions to the Preamble during an en banc session at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) on Wednesday.
“This is not just a grandiose display and play of words but a pledge by all our people, a promise by all our constituents not to secede from the new federal republic. This pledge not to secede is ultra important. For today, the world is beset by the problem of secession of states,” he added.
Puno said the new wordings of the Preamble, which establish a republic that is permanent and a union that is indissoluble, compel people to reject the notion that any constituent unit has any right to secede from the republic.
“By our Preamble, our sovereign people will be voting ‘no’ to any secession,” Puno said.
Below is a comparison of the revised and 1987 Preamble:
Preamble under the proposed new Constitution:
“We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, to build a permanent and indissoluble nation and establish a just, humane, united and progressive society under a federal government that shall embody our shared ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution of the Federal Republic of the Philippines.”
Preamble under the 1987 Constitution:
“We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society, and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution.” (PNA)
