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| Gemini AI Art |
You must define and protect our individual freedoms and rights; you must decide how our different institutions of state will relate to each other. Do not be distracted by political debates and matters of policy that do not belong within your constitution-making exercise. You are here appointed, by the people’s wish, to write a constitution; you are not here as elected politicians.
Bear in mind that you shall be pondering, debating and writing a constitution not only for our contemporaries with their present concerns, but also for succeeding generations of Filipinos whose first concerns we cannot presume to know beforehand. Future Filipinos must always be free to decide how to address these concerns as they arise. Even the wisest cures for present maladies should not be imposed on succeeding generations that will have their own unique problems and priorities.
True and long-lived constitutions, a wise justice has told me, should be broad enough to be able to meet every exigency we cannot foretell and specific enough to stoutly protect the essentials of a true democracy; in short, open-ended documents that will always be relevant. Remember that constitutional changes are not safe or easy to come by. Our first attempt at constitutional revision was followed by a dictatorship. And this, our second endeavor, was preceded by a revolution.
Future Filipinos and their legislatures and Supreme Courts can best assess and address the challenges they will meet if they enjoy the widest latitude of thought and action. In writing a constitution have the fullest confidence that the wisdom of our race is exhausted in us. Our race has grown in wisdom over time. I believe it will continue to do so.
Yours is indeed no easy task. On the other hand, depending on the result, yours will be no small glory. Our people have suffered much.
Not even Cory intended that the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines should be the "forever constitution" of the Philippines! Unfortunately, the framers still kept carrying over the same lousy Filipino First Policy, which was the enabler of cronyism. Even worse, some fact-checkers in the Philippines still believe that the 1987 Constitution doesn't protect the oligarchy! I respectfully beg to differ! Cory, who should've remained a symbolic Head of State, should' remained as one!
What I do is I start posting links, whether it's from this blog or from any sources that my blog has gathered. After all, this blog was never meant to be an academic source! What I did was that I posted certain links that my blog used. They were rejected without knowing it. I remember someone who kept projecting his faults onto my blog, saying it's "useless to read my blog" because it's full of Ad Hominem. However, the same person was guilty of Ad Hominem. These two clowns even said, "What do you know about the constitution like Davide and the Monsods?"
The big difference between the 1987 Constitution apologists and the Internet is the frequency of updates
It should get really funny, indeed, that while it's good advice to discern what's written on the Internet, why am I supposed to blindly follow the framers? If anything, the Internet will never be perfect. To dismiss anything from the Internet without validating it is a biased act! To dismiss a YouTube video (and mind you, ABS-CBN and GMA-7 have YouTube channels) immediately just because it's on YouTube, is again a genetic fallacy and an Ad Hominem. Why do you think YouTube now has a Premium plan? Why do you think networks like National Geographic, Rappler, Discovery Channel, etc. have a YouTube channel? Would that invalidate their videos, just because they're on YouTube?
To reject anything from the Internet, because the Internet can be wrong (and there are many websites with lots of errors), but to treat the 1987 Constitution framers as "divine messengers" is a complete contradiction in many ways. It's practically using the appeal to authority (that is, using authority to dismiss any argument) and Nirvana fallacy. Nirvana fallacy would be that they reject the imperfect solution, even when it's better, in favor of their comfort zone.
If we think about it, the Internet isn't a place ot get infallible information. Instead, it's a platform where people communicate their ideas. When I blog, I put my blog up for scrutiny. When I comment or read comments, it means that I need to read through the comment and find out if the rumor is true. The problem is that by having a mindset, "I will never listen to anyone if it's not Davide or Monsod, or any of the framers of the "holy and sacred' 1987 Constitution!", they couldn't even prove their claims like, "The 1987 Constitution is the best in the world!" This means that when they refuse to read an article, whether it's from a personal blog (which may contain many useful links) or a website, they're actually not passing through scrutiny.
In the Internet, we get updates every now and then. For example, the Supreme Court of the Philippines has a website. Today, one can now find the Constitute Project to compare constitutions in the world. The Internet had much shorter limits than today. Thanks to the Internet, one can now Google "Is the 1987 Constitution the best in the world?" Thankfully, some websites are always updating and never act like they're always right. The Internet is a huge digital library, which has been a reason why I've been able to find several books that I could buy. It was through the Internet that I was able to buy From Third World to First, a book that's hard to find in the Philippines!
It was also because of the Internet, that I was able to find out why the Philippines (a democracy) is poor, and why, ironically, Communist Vietnam is richer and the more ideal place to invest. During the COVID-19 pandemic, thankfully Internet existed not just because I had to stay home, but also because that the Internet allowed me to find the success of other countries. It was through that scrutiny that put the Philippines shame in to other countries, and I discovered why America's credibility is sunk. It was also through the Internet that I discovered Davide's outdated claims and compared them to Mahbubani's claims about FDI. It's already the information age! Do the diehard apologists for the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines think they can just post their claim online, and that claim will not be subject to scrutiny of people on the Internet?
Whenever the 1987 Constitution apologists say what they're saying, "Don't believe everything on the Internet, but you can always trust our framers!", on the Internet, they're shooting their own foot. They should allow themselves to be scrutinized. The problem is that they're relying on an outdated database. The 1987 Constitution of the Philippines is like an operating system that's not even updated. What happened to Article XVII then? Even that needs to be amended from two-thirds vote to a 51% vote for amendments! What happened to the people's initiative? The problem is that the framers aren't updating their minds at all!
That's why I ask, "Does Davide know how to bring the Philippines up in the Asian Century?" Davide's ideas need to be tested against proven and tested people like Kishore Mahbubani and Mahathir Mohamad. It's already the information age and new generation is generated everyday. The real talk is, "Today's news is tomorrow's history!"