People Power
Constitutional, Lawyers’ Group Says
The Committee for the Defense of Lawyers (CODAL)
July 8 said it finds without legal and constitutional basis the threats by
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against mass actions calling for her to
step down.
BY BULATLAT
THUMBS DOWN: Workers
and other activists give Macapagal-Arroyo the thumbs-down sign in a
rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila, July 7.
Photo by Aubrey Makilan |
The Committee for the Defense of Lawyers (CODAL) said July 9 it finds
without legal and constitutional basis the threats by President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo against mass
actions calling for her to step down.
Lawyer Neri Javier
Colmenares, CODAL spokesperson, said that “Not only is this
assertion supported by the Constitutional recognition that ‘sovereignty
resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them’”
but the Supreme Court has declared so in the case of Estrada vs Arroyo,
the very case used by President Arroyo to legitimize her
government.
|
Colmenares cited the Supreme Court ruling of March 2, 2001 that what took
place at EDSA from Jan. 16 to 20, 2001 was not a revolution but the
peaceful expression of popular will.
“The operative fact
which enabled Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to assume the
presidency was the fact that there was a crisis, nay a vacuum, in the
executive leadership which made the government rife for seizure by lawless
elements,” the Supreme Court said.
The camp of former
President Joseph Estrada, who was ousted through a popular uprising during
that period, had challenged the legality of Arroyo’s assumption of the
presidency, saying she had assumed power by unconstitutional means.
Last week, however,
Malacañang spokespersons branded calls for Arroyo’s resignation or ouster
as “unconstitutional.” They have called on the people to follow the rule
of law and not resort to “extra-constitutional” alternatives.
CODAL asserts that the call of former President Cory Aquino and others for
President Arroyo to step down cannot be deemed a “threat to democratic
principles and constitutional foundations,” as claimed by Mrs. Arroyo.
This demand is the exercise of a legitimate right and not an
extra-constitutional act, the lawyers’ group argues.
“The people should
not be threatened by President Arroyo's intimidation. A government that
has brazenly violated the Constitution's bill of rights, its provisions on
taxation and deployment of foreign troops has no moral authority to
lecture the people on the need to abide by the Constitution", Colmenares
added.
CODAL also said that National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director
Reynaldo Wycoco's failure to investigate those who may have committed
election offenses in the “Hello Garci'” tape is a dereliction of his duty
as NBI director and he, like the President, may be tried for violating
Art. 208 of the Revised Penal Code for “tolerating the commission of
offenses.”
CODAL further believes that the proposal of former President Fidel Ramos
for a charter change does not address the charge that the President
violated the country’s penal laws and the 1987 Constitution.
The lawyers’ group is calling on the President and her Cabinet to step
down and for the institution of “comprehensive and lasting social reforms”
under a framework which “ensures the people’s effective participation in
governance.” Bulatlat
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