Ban on political dynasties in Charter should be self-enforcing—Santiago

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiiago INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Instead of passing a law against political dynasty, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago is proposing  a “self-enforcing” prohibition that can be introduced as an amendment to the Constitution.

Santiago, chairman of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments, noted a “very strong movement” in the House of Representatives to change the Constitution but warned that any amendment could not be restricted to economic provisions.

“My only caveat or warning is, that once you decide to change the Constitution, you cannot  by law, limit the change or amendment of the Constitution to just for a particular point,” she told reporters on Friday.

“There are opinions of the Supreme Court ruling that once Congress has made a decision to open the Charter to change, it cannot limit what a Constitutional Convention or a Constituent Assembly can do. You cannot say just limit it to economic provisions. That will go against the ratio decidendi of the cases decided by the Supreme Court. So if that’s going to happen, I generally do not want the Constitution to be amended so soon.”

“But I’m dying to introduce an amendment so that, for  example, the prohibition against dynasties should be self-enforcing instead of leaving it to Congress to pass the proper law,” she said.

Santiago noted that until now, Congress has never passed a law against dynasties “notwithstanding that there is a commandment in the Constitution for them to do so.”

Another provision that Santiago wants to see in the Constitution is the one that would require at least a college degree before a candidate can run for national office.

“Right now, there is even no educational qualifications. Right now in our statute books, people who apply to become policemen must be at least college graduates. There is no such provision for a presidential candidate so any idiot can run for president and possibly poll a certain number of votes among his fellow idiots.”

“So we should make it of record that the Constitution should require the candidate to be at least candidate for national office– president, vice president,  senator – to be at least a college graduate and maybe even include representatives,” Santiago added.

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