Just some quick notes here.
1. The people advocating a revolutionary government are in effect calling for a self-coup, or an “autogolpe” in Spanish, where a legitimately elected leader illegally dissolves the other branches of government and assumes extraordinary powers for himself.
2. A power grab is a power grab, regardless of who the beneficiary is. Remember that a President is not the same as the government. Government is a balancing of the powers of the three branches of government—the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. The different branches are supposed to act as checks and balances for each other.
If, and that is a big IF, a President accedes to the proposal and declares a revolutionary government and dissolves the legislature and controls the judiciary, that is still clearly a power grab.
“A RevGov could also happen if the insiders—the people in actual and constitutional control of the government actively assisted by the military (or the military officials themselves)—set aside the constitution, sweep out the incumbent officials, install new ones, and run the government according to their will and ways,” warned former SC Justice Artemio Panganiban in 2017, when President Duterte was still openly flirting with the possibility of declaring a revgov.
Since then, Duterte seems to have dropped the idea.
3. As Dean Ronald Mendoza of the Ateneo School of Government puts it, the objective seems to be the dissolution of all the checks and balances that are in place. “Usually a revolutionary government involves overthrowing the government. Since that’s not your objective, all you’re doing is overthrowing democratic checks and balances. What you really want is authoritarianism, not rev-gov,” Mendoza tells revgov proponents.
4. By any legal definition, a revgov would be illegal and extra constitutional. Think of how many laws are violated just by advocating this—inciting to sedition, inciting to rebellion, treason, and so on. It would also be interesting to know if those advocating for a revgov are covered by the anti-terror act. What do the lawyers think?
Article 142 of the Revised Penal Code: xxx The penalty of prision correccional in its maximum period and a fine not exceeding 2,000 pesos shall be imposed upon any person who, without taking any direct part in the crime of sedition, should incite others to the accomplishment of any of the acts which constitute sedition, by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, cartoons, banners, or other representations tending to the same end, or upon any person or persons who shall utter seditious words or speeches, write, publish, or circulate scurrilous libels against the Republic of the Philippines or any of the duly constituted authorities thereof, or which tend to disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing the functions of his office, or which tend to instigate others to cabal and meet together for unlawful purposes, or which suggest or incite people against the lawful authorities or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the Government, or who shall knowingly conceal such evil practices.xxx
Take note that the duly constituted authorities and offices refer not only to the President but to the officials of the two other branches of government—the legislature and the judiciary—who would be ousted or dissolved in the event of a revgov.
5. Why is the chief of the PNP treating an invitation to a revgov meeting so glibly? Is it because the President is the proposed beneficiary? Does that mean that a power grab is only illegal if the proposed beneficiary is someone else? Shouldn’t the country’s top policeman be interested in the meeting, not to take part in it, but to identify perpetrators and build a case?
6. In other words, how can people push the idea of a revgov so glibly and blatantly, without any repercussions? People in the legal left (I am not talking about the New People’s Army here) get tagged and persecuted for much less.
Of course the idea of revolution is not entirely new in the Philippines. Aguinaldo had a revolutionary government. Cory Aquino had a revolutionary government. The New People’s Army is still waging a war to install its own idea of a revolutionary government. But these are all outsiders trying to change a system or install their own, not insiders who ARE the system (remember the supermajority in Congress?), who wield full control over an immense bureaucracy, trillions of pesos, and the full might of the military and police. ***
Posted on Ed Lingao’s Facebook, August 22 2020.