SC paves way for petition vs martial law

The petition questioning the constitutionality of the yearlong extension of martial law (ML) in Mindanao has hurdled  “preliminary gauntlet” after the Supreme Court ordered leaders of Congress and Cabinet members to respond, according to one of the petitioners.

“This augurs well for the petition which has survived the preliminary gauntlet which petitions have to pass through in the high court,” said Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, leader of an independent opposition bloc, known as Magnificent Seven, at the House of Representatives.

In a Dec. 29 resolution, the Supreme Court said the petition “appears to be sufficient in form and substance.”

The high court required respondents—Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, among others—to “comment on the petition and the prayer for temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction within a nonextendible period of 10 days from notice hereof.”

Duterte’s Congress

Other respondents asked to comment were Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Gen. Rey Leonardo Guerrero.

Lagman and five members of his group asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop Malacañang from enforcing martial law and suspending the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2018.

The two chambers of Congress, controlled by the President’s lieutenants, in a joint session granted Mr. Duterte’s request for a second extension of the duration of his Proclamation No. 216 declaring martial law in Mindanao.

The first extension was granted in July lasting for five months and lapsing on Dec. 31.

Solicitor General Jose Calida, in a statement on Friday, said opposition lawmakers who filed the petition did not “know better than the President and the overwhelming majority of members of Congress who approved the extension of martial law in Mindanao.”

‘Political question’

“The congressional imprimatur on the validity of the extension of martial law in the whole of Mindanao is a political question that has been resolved by the legislature,” he said.

To which Lagman replied: “Solicitor General Calida must limit himself to the legal issues raised in the petition questioning the constitutionality of the extension of martial law and of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao.”

“He should not meander into proclaiming that the President and the supermajority of Congress are above the Constitution as if they could do no wrong,” he said.

In another statement, Lagman said the two extensions of martial law would amount to a combined duration of 526 days.

“This is inordinately long,” said Lagman. He said it defied “constitutional limitations.”

Lagman said that the 1987 Constitution limited the period during which martial law could be implemented to just 60 days as a safeguard against abuses.

Extending martial law for a second time for a full year “is oppressively long and patently unconstitutional” aside from being “factually unwarranted,” said Lagman.