ARTICLE XVIISection 1. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by:
(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or
(2) A constitutional convention.
Section 2. Amendments to this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least twelve per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters therein. No amendment under this section shall be authorized within five years following the ratification of this Constitution nor oftener than once every five years thereafter.
The Congress shall provide for the implementation of the exercise of this right.
Section 3. The Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of all its Members, call a constitutional convention, or by a majority vote of all its Members, submit to the electorate the question of calling such a convention.
Section 4. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution under Section 1 hereof shall be valid when ratified by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite which shall be held not earlier than sixty days nor later than ninety days after the approval of such amendment or revision.
Any amendment under Section 2 hereof shall be valid when ratified by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite which shall be held not earlier than sixty days nor later than ninety days after the certification by the Commission on Elections of the sufficiency of the petition.
In an article entitled “
People's Initiative: Amendment, Revision and the Political Question “ written by Dean Jorge Bocobo, he differentiated Amendment from Revision by identifying the different Constitutions in Philippine History. The article is as follows:
In considering the Sigaw ng Bayan Petition that is now before the Supreme Court, and the Proposal for Unicameral Parliamentary system, I have come to a number of preliminary formulations that may have some bearing on the Supreme Court case that was the subject of yesterday's Oral Arguments at Padre Faura:
CONSTITUTIONS are coterminous with the POLITY or political regime that establishes them as the "basic law of the land" (which may be Republics or Dictatorships or other forms of government.)
REVISIONS produce new Constitutions and establish new political regimes. AMENDMENTS do not.
SUPREME COURTS are coterminous with the Constitution that creates and establishes them to be the authority that interprets its meaning as the Basic Law and decides cases brought before it.
POLITICAL QUESTIONS are NON-JUSTICIABLE cases that are beyond the jurisdiction, competence or ability of even the Supreme Court to decide. For example, Supreme Courts cannot logically question the legitimacy of the Constitution that created them. The so-called Political Question Doctrine holds that it would be a meaningless, inconsistent, contradictory and unacceptable self-referential invalidation for a Supreme Court to even take up the validity or legitimacy or Constitutionality of the revolution, coup d'etat, or other political process that established that Constitution and the Court.
I believe that as a general rule cases and controversies arising from AMENDMENTS to the Constitution are JUSTICIABLE and not POLITICAL QUESTIONS. But the circumstances, processes and politics that establish NEW Constitutions, including REVISIONS, are beyond the jurisdiction of even the Supreme Court, whose very existence is extinguished with the OLD constitution. There are other cases that are clearly nonjusticiable, such as those that involve the Separation of Powers doctrine.
In order to develop a useful distinction between the technical terms AMENDMENT and REVISION in the 1987 Constitution, I think it helps to identify each of the different Philippine Constitutions in our history and associate it with the Republic or polity it established. By my count, we have had four of them since Spain left: The Malolos Constitution and the First Philippine Republic (June 12, 1898), which was conquered and "colonized" the by United States; the Commonwealth Constitution and Second Philippine Republic (1935); the Marcos Martial Law Constitution (1973) and the "Third Republic" which featured a puppet unicameral Parliament; the Cory Constitution (1987) and the present "Fourth Republic" of the Philippines, counting by the recognized Constitutions.
Clearly, Constitutions are COTERMINOUS with readily identifiable political regimes in history. Above, I have identified four such regimes and their unique Constitutions. This identifcation is the basis of the distinction I wish to propose between AMENDMENT and REVISION.
Let me DEFINE each of the four Constitutions mentioned above as a REVISION of the Constitution that came before it, or whatever served as the "basic law of the land" in the previous political regime that each one supplanted. If we agree to this definition then we may say that an AMENDMENT is any other change to the basic law of the land that does not establish a new political regime as they did.
How useful is the above distinction?
Basic to the present controversy is the following Article of the 1987 Constitution which clearly restricts the REVISION of the Constitution to elected representative bodies: only Congress acting as a Constituent Assembly or a Constitutional Convention (Section 1)--but not for the innovative People's Initiative mode (Section 2).
Under the above terminology, the People's Initiative proposal to adopt a Unicameral Parliament is an AMENDMENT.
It has been argued that the proposal is tantamount to a REVISION of the charter and does not constitute an AMENDMENT to it because it represents such a major change in the form of government. (This of course is based on a different, UNKNOWN definition of the two terms.)
Amendment refers to isolate or piecemeal change only as distinguished from a revision, which is a revamp or rewriting of the whole instrument. Thus there was a mere amendment of the Constitution of 1935 when the term of office of the President of the Philippines was changed from six to four years. But there was a revision when the constitutional convention of 1971 rewrote the entire document and produces the Constitution of 1973, which was in turn revised with the adoption of the present constitution. (Isagani A. Cruz, Philippine Political Law, 1996 ed.)
According to Joaquin G. Bernas, “An amendment envisages an alteration of one or few specific and separable provisions. The guiding original intention of an amendment is to improve specific parts or to add new provisions deemed necessary to meet new conditions or to suppress specific portions that may have become obsolete or that are judged to be dangerous. In revision, however, the guiding original intention and plan contemplates a re-examination of the entire document, or of provisions of the documents which have over-all implications for the entire document or for the fundamental philosophical underpinnings of the document, to determine how and to what extent they should be altered. Thus for instance a switch from the presidential system to a parliamentary system would be a revision because of its over-all impact on the entire constitutional structure. So would a switch from a bicameral system to a unicameral system be because of its effect on other important provisions of the Constitution. Similarly, an abandonment of term limits would be a radical departure from the philosophical intent of the 1987 Constitution which seeks to disperse political power.
It is thus clear that what distinguishes revision from amendment is not the quantum of the change in the document. Rather, it is the fundamental qualitative alteration that effects revision. “
Courts have long recognized the distinction between an amendment and a revision of a constitution. One of the earliest cases that recognized the distinction described the fundamental difference in this manner:
[T]he very term "constitution" implies an instrument of a permanent and abiding nature, and the provisions contained therein for its revision indicate the will of the people that the underlying principles upon which it rests, as well as the substantial entirety of the instrument, shall be of a like permanent and abiding nature. On the other hand, the significance of the term "amendment" implies such an addition or change within the lines of the original instrument as will effect an improvement, or better carry out the purpose for which it was framed.35 (Emphasis supplied)
Revision broadly implies a change that alters a basic principle in the constitution, like altering the principle of separation of powers or the system of checks-and-balances. There is also revision if the change alters the substantial entirety of the constitution, as when the change affects substantial provisions of the constitution. On the other hand, amendment broadly refers to a change that adds, reduces, or deletes without altering the basic principle involved. Revision generally affects several provisions of the constitution, while amendment generally affects only the specific provision being amended.
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Lambino vs. COMELEC
Amendment or Revision?
One last matter to be considered is whether the petition may be allowed under RA 6735, since only amendments to the Constitution may be the subject of a people's initiative.
The Lambino petition cannot be considered an act of revising the Constitution; it is merely an attempt to amend it. The term amendment has to be liberally construed so as to effectuate the people's efforts to amend the Constitution.
As an eminent constitutionalist, Dean Vicente G. Sinco,9 explained:
Strictly speaking, the act of revising a constitution involves alterations of different portions of the entire document. It may result in the rewriting either of the whole constitution, or the greater portion of it, or perhaps only some of its important provisions. But whatever results the revision may produce, the factor that characterizes it as an act of revision is the original intention and plan authorized to be carried out. That intention and plan must contemplate a consideration of all the provisions of the constitution to determine which one should be altered or suppressed or whether the whole document should be replaced with an entirely new one.
The act of amending a constitution, on the other hand, envisages a change of only a few specific provisions. The intention of an act to amend is not to consider the advisability of changing the entire constitution or of considering that possibility. The intention rather is to improve specific parts of the existing constitution or to add to it provisions deemed essential on account of changed conditions or to suppress portions of it that seem obsolete, or dangerous, or misleading in their effect.
In this case, the Lambino petition is not concerned with rewriting the entire Constitution. It was never its intention to revise the whole Constitution. It merely concerns itself with amending a few provisions in our fundamental charter.
When there are gray areas in legislation, especially in matters that pertain to the sovereign people's political rights, courts must lean more towards a more liberal interpretation favoring the people's right to exercise their sovereign power.
Lambino v. Comelec: The Initiative Violates Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution Disallowing Revision through Initiatives...By any legal test and under any jurisdiction, a shift from a Bicameral-Presidential to a Unicameral-Parliamentary system, involving the abolition of the Office of the President and the abolition of one chamber of Congress, is beyond doubt a revision, not a mere amendment. (http://philippinecommentary.blogspot.com/2006/10/revision-or-amendment-revision.html )
