Proposed Philippine Constitution

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(This is a placeholder for the root wiki that will hold the Proposed Constitution. For now it contains a rephrasing of the 1987 Preamble. Put your proposed Article below this root wiki by clicking on “Create New” above. The “Create New” tab only appears when you are logged in and you have Contributor role. You may request Contributor access by doing the last step of instructions in the Signup page.)

PREAMBLE

We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society, and establish a Government that shall be limited in powers according to this Constitution, promote liberty, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution.

This Constitution is not meant to control the people; rather, it is meant to constrain the government. By coming together to agree on a Constitution, the people have already agreed that a powerful entity called the “government” is to have coercive powers over everybody. The people have already agreed to cede certain extraordinary rights to this government: from this perspective, the Constitution is meant to define exactly which rights the people are giving up and granting to the government.

The powers of the government are enumerated herein. Powers not defined in this Constitution are reserved by the people.

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7 Responses

  1. MKDL Studios says:

    Articles I and II of the ’87 Constitution will be merged into Article I: Basic Government Principles.

  2. MKDL Studios says:

    I have altered the “imploring” phrase to the secular format proposed by “Kram Ecnerwal” based on http://www.facebook.com/notes/kram-ecnerwal/a-proposed-secular-philippines-preamble/10150306243298820

  3. cctapang says:

    As I stated in the Facebook discussion on this, I believe we should leave mention of God at least in the Preamble. Ninety percent of us Filipinos are Christians (80% Catholic). How can we sell this Proposed Constitution to the intellectuals (and then to the Filipinos themselves) if it is not based on our fundamental belief system?

  4. Daniel Joseph says:

    I agree with ccatapang. In addition, we must put God in this preamble because He is the ultimate lawmaker and lawgiver.

  5. cctapang says:

    For now I have put it back to where it was. Please post your objections as a comment here.

  6. MKDL Studios says:

    Given our nation’s rich Roman Catholic heritage, I therefore concede that the phrase “Almighty God” be used in the preamble. My apologies for the inconvenience.

  7. 1973 Constitution used the term of “Divine Providence” to appease the non-believers or agnostic. Philippines is a country of diverse people with numerous sects or beliefs, therefore, it is incumbent upon us to respect them as we respect other religions. Having the term “Almighty God” is unrepresentative of our country and of the diverse Filipino populace.

    To argue that “Ninety percent of us Filipinos are Christians (80% Catholic), henceforth ‘Almighty God” must be used” is simply uncorroborated. Such argumentation clearly displays tyranny rule–a clear disregard to the minority.