The President protests too much

After receiving the draft federal constitution of the advisory committee that he created, President Duterte stated that he approved the document in its entirety, with the exception of the transitional provisions. He told committee members that he wanted an explicit statement, in the draft constitution, that would prevent him from running for re-election at the end of his term.

The Committee was obliged to revise certain transitional provisions of Article XXII. a new section 2: "The outgoing President is prohibited from standing in the elections of 2022 under the Constitution."

But whether it was by inattention caused by haste or diabolical intent, the committee proposed new transitional provisions in the final draft.

I had serious doubts about the transitional provisions of the first draft, the one presented to the President: The Federal Transitional Commission envisaged by the provisions is an all-powerful agency under the control of President Duterte. In this first project, the president is not only appointed chairman of the commission; it appoints the research committee that will name the 10 members, and appoints the members themselves.

In the second version, the president was explicitly banned from reelection, the search committee was rejected, the composition of the commission was expanded former presidents and congressional leaders. (Given the dramatic but not unexpected state of play that took place yesterday in the House of Representatives, the number of commission members now seems reduced by one unit since the dreaded Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is at the President and Speaker of the House). 19659002] But the ban on President Duterte is now associated with the election of a transition president and vice president. Article 3 reads in part as follows: "Within six months of ratification of the Constitution, the President shall convene an election for the President and the Vice President of the Tandem Transition. The President and the Vice President of Transition must have the same qualifications and be subject to the same restrictions as those provided for in Article VIII of this Constitution. "

However, the wording of the transitional provisions is inconsistent, it does not explicitly say that when the President and the Vice President of the Transition are elected, President Duterte will step down." On the basis of his own statements, we can say that the President would like to shorten his mandate.While we take into account Mr. Duterte's penchant for melodramatic rhetoric, the election of transition officials who will only serve for a few years seems to suggest that the wish expressed publicly by the president can be granted

except that President Duterte no longer has reason to stay in power? "The transitional president will preside over the orderly transition to the federal system of government. He will exercise all the powers of the President under this Constitution until June 30, 2022. "

And yet the transitional provisions lack the clear language required by, well, a transition.Section 1 states:" The mandate of the President and Vice-President, which will end on June 30, 2022, will not be extended. "The use of the" imperative "must" suggest that the term defined by the 1987 Constitution will be respected. President Duterte resigns after the election of transitional officials is only implied, why did the advisory committee fail to include clear wording?

I think it may be to be because the advisory committee did not want to spell out a secondary implication.If President Duterte reduced his term in the short term, the vice president Leni Robredo will also be removed from office, what it n & # 39; He did not ask, worse still, the President and the Vice President of Transition will be elected "in tandem", an expression that echoes the controversial provision of Article VIII, Section 4: "The President and Vice President are elected as a team. The political theory underlying this provision, and the politics of the Filipino parties in general, is reflected in its strange choice of the term "team".

What do these two late additions mean to the final version of the draft federal constitution? They will remove the leader of the political opposition and, given the residual popularity of President Duterte, they will make it unlikely that a leader of the opposition will exercise control during the crucial transition.

Worse still, the Federal Transition Commission powerful agency – under the control of the administration.

On Twitter: @jnery_newsstand. E-mail: [email protected]

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