A PETITION was filed on Monday before the Supreme Court seeking to declare unconstitutional the approval on third reading by the House of Representatives of the Maharlika Investment Fund bill.
In a 22-page petition, the so-called Makabayan bloc representatives also sought the nullification of the certification of urgency issued by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on House Bill No. 6608, also known as the “Maharlika” Bill and the nullification of the approval of HB 6608 on third reading.
The group is also asking the Supreme Court to establish guidelines for the use of Presidential Certification under Article VI, Section 26 (2) of the 1987 Constitution, to ensure that this presidential power is exercised in accordance with the Constitution’s intent and spirit.
The petitioners asserted that there has been a long history of abuse of the presidential power to certify proposed legislation as urgent, despite the absence of a “public emergency or calamity” as mandated by the 1987 Constitution, by several past administrations and even by the present administration, as seen in the Maharlika measure’s approval in the House.
The petitioners—Bayan Muna Chairman Neri Colmenares, former Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Isagani Zarate, ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Francisca “France” Castro, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas and Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raoul Danniel Manuel—clarified that the petition does not question the legality of the Marcos administration’s plan to create the so-called Maharlika Investment Fund as part of its long-term economic program to address lack of foreign investments in the country.
The main issue in their petition, said the filers, is the supposed violation of the constitutional requirements for the issuance of presidential certification of urgency for the passage of a proposed law.
Likewise, the petitioners are seeking the Court’s issuance of guidelines on the exercise of presidential certification under Article VI, Section 26 (2).
“The practice of requesting for and issuing a presidential certification on urgency for ‘public emergency or calamity’ must be tempered as it distorts the requirements and processes imposed by the 1987 Constitution and its framers for the passage of a law. It is hoped that the Honorable Court, through herein petition, will issue some guidelines necessary to ensure that the same will not be abused in the future and by future administration,” the petitioners said.
Article VI, Section 26 (2) states that “no bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to its members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency.”
The petitioners ascribed grave abuse of discretion in Marcos’s exercise of presidential power under the said constitutional provision because there was no declared public calamity or emergency to anchor the certification for the Maharlika measure.
The petitioners also asserted that the House of Representatives committed grave abuse of discretion when it approved the Maharlika Bill on third reading without complying with the constitutional requirements under Article VI, Section 26 (2).
The absence of the same certification for the Mahalika Investment Fund bill version in the Senate, or Senate Bill No. 1670, only proves the lack of public calamity and emergency that the certification was supposed to address, petitioners pointed out.
They noted that “when the President certifies a bill as urgent in one house of Congress but not in the other, this constitutes a distorted and a grave abuse of discretion in the exercise of presidential power under Article VI, Section 26 and the President is clearly circumventing the legislative process in the other house without certifying the bill as urgent.”
Petitioners stressed: “By its nature, a presidential certification of urgency short-circuits the normal processes in Congress in terms of law-making. As such, the presidential power must only be used when there is an actual ‘public calamity or emergency’.
“As it is, the presidential certification on the Maharlika Bill is a baseless certification of urgency that only results in cutting off deliberations in one House of Congress alone and circumventing constitutional requirements,” they added.
“We ask the Honorable Court to void the presidential certification of the Maharlika Bill, as well as its approval on Third Reading, without a printed copy of the bill’s final form distributed to the Members at least three days before it is voted upon,” the petition read.
The petitioners, however, said they are not asking for the President to be powerless in the face of public emergencies or calamities.
“Rather, they are seeking for the exercise of a power that would infringe on the constitutional duties and processes of Congress to be exercised only when a clearly defined emergency or calamity requires the curtailment of these processes,” the bloc said.
The petitioners also lamented the lack of transparency in the voting process on the Maharlika Bill, noting that at least 22 sections of the proposed law were amended during the period of individual amendments on second reading, nine sections were inserted including Article X, and a penalty clause in one section was deleted.
Despite these, the petitioners said, the bill was voted on without House members being provided with a printed copy of the final version before the third reading, as mandated under Article VI, Section 26 (2).
“This left the legislators, including herein petitioners, unaware if the final bill being voted on truly reflected the decisions made during the amendment period,” the petitioners said.
“Worse, this also leaves the bill open to insertions of additional provisions or riders that were not approved by the House. This is the reason why presidential discretion to issue such certification of urgency cannot be abused as it short cuts constitutionally required processes to ensure that laws were carefully studied by both houses of Congress,” they pointed out.
Image credits: Mike Gonzalez via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA-3.0
