MIRIAM OK WITH LUMAD AUTONOMOUS REGION

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, a constitutional law expert, said that the Constitution allows Congress to pass a law creating a Lumad Autonomous Region.

“In fact, the Constitution not merely allows but orders the creation of autonomous regions in Muslim Mindanao. However, the Constitution does not say that the autonomous regions shall be confined to Muslim areas only,” she said.

Santiago said that a bill embodying the proper organic act has to be filed in Congress, and should first show compliance with the constitutional requirement that the Lumad share “common and distinctive historical and cultural heritage, economic and social structures, and other relevant characteristics.”

The senator said that a Lumad Autonomous Region is also supported by the constitutional policy that “the State recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural communities.”

In another development, Santiago said that it is only the Supreme Court which can decide whether to suspend proceedings questioning the constitutionality of the MOA-AD which creates the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.

“The American experience is not applicable, because the cases were suspended during the civil war, and then during a world war. What we have in Mindanao is merely an insurgency,” she said.

Santiago said that the petitioners should respect President Arroyo’s statement that the government would renegotiate the MOA-AD with the MILF, thus rendering the petition moot.

“While the power to determine foreign policy is shared by the President and the Congress, it is only the President who speaks on behalf of the entire country in foreign affairs. It would be unwise to preempt her,” she said.

Santiago also stressed that greater autonomy for the Bangsamoro, even under a federal system, would not give them the right to secede from the Philippines .

“The Constitution explicitly provides that autonomous regions shall operate within the framework of the Constitution, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” she said.

Santiago said that it was “ill-advised” for the GRP panel to agree to the term “Memorandum of Agreement” or MOA.

“The GRP Panel should have insisted on the term ‘Memorandum of Understanding,’ or MOU. On the one hand, an MOA normally indicates an intent to be bound. On the other hand, an MOU is normally a set of unilateral interpretations of a treaty under negotiation,” the senator said.

Santiago said that if the Supreme Court proceeds to rule on the constitutionality of the MOA-AD, it will consider two factors: the content of the MOA; and the evidence of the intent of its makers.

“In reporting on the development of autonomous regions, we should avoid using the international law term ‘self-determination.’ It refers merely to decolonization. Instead, we should use the constitutional law term ‘autonomous region.’ It refers to the territorial integrity of our country,” she said.

Transcript of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago’s interview

5 October 2007

On Administrative Order 197

I have not yet received a copy (but) I can immediately notice that there is a constitutional issue involved. This administrative order might be on a collision course with the constitutional provision of the right of the public to know. It might be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on that grounds, so I am already worried as a constitutionalist.

I believe that it could be adequately covered by the doctrine of executive privilege which is already have been upheld by the Supreme Court in that case of Senate v. Ermita. There, the Supreme Court invalidated the Executive Order No. 464 but at the same time it said that the doctrine of executive privilege, which is not a constitutional provision, is applicable but under certain conditions. It even made a special mention of diplomatic secrets and military secrets. In those two cases, the doctrine of executive privilege is mostly applied by the Supreme Court, that is to say it takes the word of the president; but the Office of the President must give certain specific details to explain why it is a secret. It cannot just invoke executive privilege in a general way. It must give enough details without giving away the secret. The issue of constitutionality will hinge on how the administrative order is worded.

In the Senate v. Ermita case, the Supreme Court, in effect, invalidated the language employed by the executive order—it was just too broad, it was not properly invoked, etc. So again, this might be the observation of the court in the hypothetical case that someone brings a case to question the constitutionality of the administrative order; and definitely that would be the threshold issue for any Senate committee to its chairperson who wishes to probe into military activities. Automatically, there would be an invocation of this administrative order, and then at that point the Senate would invoke the Supreme Court decision again, as in the case of Senate v. Ermita.

On the Comelec budget

The Office of the President cut down the Comelec proposed budget by nearly half, from P 8B to only P 4B. Under the constitution, the Senate Finance Committee has no longer jurisdiction to increase its budget because there is a constitutional prohibition.

The important fact about the Comelec is that it spends more or less P 5B whenever national and local elections are held together. So that’s the cost to the Filipino. Every time there is an election in both the local and national levels, immediately that’s P 5B. The Comelec always asks for a budget in the billions for voter validation, but why do we have to spend P 1.5B just to clean up the voters’ list. We’ve been engaged in this project for maybe decades. Maybe we should look for an alternative option for voter validation at lesser cost but with equal effectivity because I don’t really see very much effect on election results as announced, there are always cries of electoral fraud, and one of these frauds are fake voters’ participation or falsification of election document. This is just too big an expense.

On the CHR budget

I gave them instructions, as a constitutionalist, that there should be equal protection between civilian victims and military victims since the public is under the impression that only civilian victims are protected by the commission. There has to be emphasis that the military and uniformed people are also entitled to the protection of the Commission on Human Rights. For example, if they are treated by the combatants against the government in a manner that would be violating the international law on conflicts or the international law on war.

On the ARMM budget

This area, the ARMM, includes five provinces which are always at the bottom of the ranking for social development and for economic development, and yet ARMM for the past many years has always had one of the biggest budgets in the General Appropriations Act. Its budget is far bigger than the budget of the entire Congress of the Philippines, bigger than that of the Office of the President, bigger than that of maybe a dozen executive departments, and yet it remains at the
bottom of the list. So where is all that money going? We would like to know.

Plus, for personal services, the general rule of thumb is that it cannot exceed thirty percent of the total budget. But for the ARMM, it is more than seventy percent! What are all these people doing? I think that they have to produce more results to justify such a huge huge budget.

[ARMM proposed budget for 2008: P8.614B; 2007: P8.292B; P8.292B]