Paranoid over martial law

Was the threat for real or not? Hermeneutics has become a very practical discipline in the administration of President Digong, but, unfortunately, Secretary Andanar is definitely no Hermes. 

What we get from the good Secretary of Clarification and Qualification is not what the public hears from the President nor what the ordinary processes of communication and exchange allow us to grasp. When President Digong warned the nation that he was quite prepared to declare martial law if the drug menace turns virulent, Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, Senate President Koko Pimentel, Mr. Andanar and some other administration oracles told us something else!

But is it wrong for a president to warn the nation that he is poised to declare martial law?  My answer is unequivocal: No.  

The Constitution gives the President the right to declare martial law – and those who get into fits of paroxysm and froth in the mouth like persons possessed by some malevolent spirit are the purveyors of that reading of martial law, Marcos-era, that paints it all in hues of black and that would impose their version of history on an entire nation. 

I have repeatedly maintained that a historical event admits of different interpretations – which is not to argue for a relativist concept of historical truth. But it is a definite rejection of pretensions at the absolutist claims of those for whom martial law was unqualified evil!

Shackled commander-in-chief

Whenever my students and I reach the part of the Constitution on the emergency powers of the President, I always point out the congenital deformity of provisions crafted in dislike for Marcos and for martial law. Under the present provision, a president’s hands are not only tied. The commander-in-chief is in fact shackled: Congress has the power to review the declaration of Martial Law, and even set it aside, and any interested citizen may question the factual basis for its declaration before the Supreme Court that may also nullify it. 

These restrictions, I have insisted, are a disservice in fact to the Constitution, for it can so easily occur to any president faced with a grave peril to the nation, that the most expedient recourse left to him protect the Republic without being stymied in his efforts by restrictive provisions is by sweeping aside the entire Constitution – and then of course, it is “anything goes” in a revolutionary, extra-constitutional situation!  The point is to keep the Constitution – and its interpretation by our courts – sufficiently pliant so as to keep executive (and all government action) within its bounds!

Whether or not the conditions laid down in the Constitution for the declaration of martial law now exist is a different question, and I do not think they do. And I roundly reject the proposal to characterize the operation of foreign drug syndicates in the country as “invasion.” There is a legally accepted definition of “invasion” as of “rebellion,” and it never serves the purposes of law well to trifle with terms and their definitions.

Martial law need not be evil. The abuse of freedoms and liberties can, especially when such rambunctiousness becomes pernicious to the viability of the Republic and a threat to the rights of others. It is they who steadfastly reject the possibility of martial law and would stay the hand of a president poised to declare it under all circumstances who must learn the ways of the Constitution again. 

There is, after all, an irreplaceable role of force in the rule of law. – Rappler.com

The author is Dean, Graduate School of Law, San Beda College, and professor at the Cagayan State University.