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Professorial Lecturer, the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU),
Republic of the Philippines
I’m happy to be with you this afternoon, to share the experience of the
Philippines in using The rule of law and political institutions for restoring and
sustaining democratic governance. My presentation is largely on the Philippines
experience. And I don’t presume to be able to give any comments or suggestions on
the Thai case. But hopefully, there will be your ability to draw some, perhaps part of
the lessons and information that you can apply to the Thai case. I think the
Philippines will be able to share some useful insights because, after all, we had
martial law from 1972 to 1986, under what Ferdinand Marcos called constitutional
authoritarianism. And we were able to end that martial law because of a people
power revolt. I think the first one that was televised all over the world. And so it
was the people, in a way, acting as the sovereign, taking back the power from
Ferdinand Marcos.
From then until today, we’ve had the restoration of democracy. But several
times, especially during the early days, we had threats and actual coup d’état a
gainst the government of President Aquino, very bloody. Factions of the army, the
military fighting with one another. And of course, the restored democracy was able to
protect itself and we were able to transfer power according to the 1987 constitution
peacefully, orderly. And we’ve had several other nations then using the constitutionally
provide that means for transferring power from President Aquino to President Ramos
and then President Ramos to President Estrada.
During the time of President Estrada, we had some sort of a constitutional crisis
because he was charged with plunder. And there was an impeachment trial, but he
voluntarily left the Palace which was construed, but the supreme court say
resignation, so we were able to transfer power to the Vice President, who was
President Arroyo. And then President Arroyo was selected for a new term. That was
also a slight problem there because in running for public office while she was
President, she was found to have talked to a member of the Independent Directors
Commission which was a violation of the rule of law. And she apologized for the
purpose. But we were able to transcend that particular crisis. President Arroyo left
office and we had President Noynoy or PNoy Aquino, the son of Corazón Aquino.
And his term ended in 2016. And now you have President Duterte.
So, the story is that we were able to survive the threat of constitutional
authoritarianism, a return to martial law. But now under President Duterte, you may
have realized he is a different kind of President. And he has declared martial law in
Mindanao, which is one of the biggest islands in the Muslim area. And I think there
ª£¸ª±¡¡²¥¸h¡¢h¢µÈ society and the rest of society is very apprehensive about that. And I think many
is a chance that he also wants to declare martial law throughout the country. So civic
people will think that under President Duterte, we are on the verge of another return
to constitutional authoritarianism.
