UNLIKE other framers of the 1987 Constitution, former Supreme Court associate justice Adolf Azcuna is in favor of amending the economic provisions of the Charter now.
Azcuna, who was the vice chairman of the legislative committee of the constitutional commission that drafted the Constitution in 1986, said, “I hope that with this, we can finally amend the Constitution so that it will be responsive to the fast-changing economic condition of the day.”
On the second day of the hearing on the Resolution of Both Houses No. 7 at the House of Representatives, Azcuna said the current proposal to amend Articles 12, 14, and 16 of the 1987 Constitution lifts the economic restrictions on public utilities, education, and advertisement.
Azcuna said there is an existing safeguard against the Senate or the House adding other proposed amendments, particularly those that are political in nature.
He said the same safeguard limits Congress to the proposed changes in the specified economic provisions.
“[The Constitutional amendment] is limited by the very form of their proposed resolution, which is in the form of a joint resolution of both Houses, and it is subjected to the cardinal rule of one subject matter only that must be expressed in that title. So political matters are not covered because they are not in the subject matter stated in the title. So that is the safeguard,” he said.
Azcuna said adding the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” to the Articles 12, 14, and 16 makes the amendment “changeable by legislation.”
“It does not do any other thing. It makes it changeable by legislation. This is to me the best solution to the economic provisions’ restriction because economic provisions should be flexible and they should not be cast in stone and 37 years is casting in stone. The economic provisions must be responsive to changing economic conditions. Therefore, I believe that we should change the provisions to make them flexible by legislation by simply adding an amendment unless otherwise provided by law,” he explained.
