Constitution of The Philippines - Historical Constitutions - The New Society and The Fourth Republic (1973)

The New Society and The Fourth Republic (1973)

The 1973 Constitution, promulgated after Marcos' declaration of martial law, was supposed to introduce a parliamentary-style government. Legislative power was vested in a National Assembly whose members were elected for six-year terms. The President was ideally supposed to be elected as the symbolic and purely ceremonial head of state from the Members of the National Assembly for a six-year term and could be re-elected to an unlimited number of terms. Upon election, the President ceased to be a member of the National Assembly. During his term, the President was not allowed to be a member of a political party or hold any other office. Executive power was meant to be exercised by the Prime Minister who was also elected from the Members of the National Assembly. The Prime Minister was the head of government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. This constitution was subsequently amended four times (arguably five depending on how one considers Proclamation No. 3 of 1986).

On 16–17 October 1976, a majority of barangay voters (Citizen Assemblies) approved that martial law should be continued and ratified the amendments to the Constitution proposed by President Marcos.

The 1976 amendments were:

• an Interim Batasang Pambansa (IBP) substituting for the Interim National Assembly
• the President would also become the Prime Minister and he would continue to exercise legislative powers until martial law should have been lifted.

The Sixth Amendment authorized the President to legislate:

Whenever in the judgement of the President there exists a grave emergency or a threat or imminence thereof, or whenever the Interim Batasang Pambansa or the regular National Assembly fails or is unable to act adequately on any matter for any reason that in his judgment requires immediate action, he may, in order to meet the exigency, issue the necessary decrees, orders or letters of instructions, which shall form part of the law of the land.

The 1973 Constitution was further amended in 1980 and 1981. In the 1980 amendment, the retirement age of the members of the Judiciary was extended to 70 years. In the 1981 amendments, the false parliamentary system was formally modified into a French-style semi-presidential system:

• executive power was restored to the President;
• direct election of the President was restored;
• an Executive Committee composed of the Prime Minister and not more than fourteen members was created to "assist the President in the exercise of his powers and functions and in the performance of his duties as he may prescribe;" and the Prime Minister was a mere head of the Cabinet.
• Further, the amendments instituted electoral reforms and provided that a natural born citizen of the Philippines who has lost his citizenship may be a transferee of private land for use by him as his residence.

The last amendments in 1984 abolished the Executive Committee and restored the position of Vice-President (which did not exist in the original, unamended 1973 Constitution).

In actual practice, while the 1973 Constitution was ideally supposed to set up a true parliamentary system, the late President Marcos had made use of subterfuge and manipulation in order to keep executive power for himself, rather than devolving executive powers to the Parliament, as headed by the Prime Minister. The end result was that the 1973 Constitution - due to all amendments and subtle manipulations - was merely the abolition of the Senate and a series of cosmetic text-changes where the old American-derived terminologies such House of Representatives became known as the "Batasang Pambansa" (National Assembly), Departments became known as "Ministries", cabinet secretaries became known as "cabinet ministers", and the President's assistant - the Executive Secretary - became known as the "Prime Minister."

Ultimately, Marcos' so-called "Parliamentary System" therefore functioned as an authoritarian-run Presidential System due to the series of amendments and other modifications put in place after the 1973 Constitution was ratified.