Opposition lawmakers on Wednesday appealed to the Supreme Court (SC) to invalidate the one-year martial law extension and suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus to Mindanao that was recently requested by President Rodrigo Duterte and latterly approved by the Congress.
The petitioners said that they find no factual basis to implement the extension, saying there “was no actual rebellion” happening in the region. They added that it “must be actual and not contingent” to justify martial law.
In a petition addressed to the high court led by Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, the lawmakers asked for an issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) or a writ of preliminary injunction to halt the enactment of martial law in the southern part of the Philippines.
Aside from Lagman, other petitioners are Caloocan Representative Edgar Erice, Ifugao Representative Teddy Baguilat Jr., Capiz Representative Emmanuel Billones, Magdalo party-list Representative Gary Alejano, and Akbayan party-list Representative Tomasito Villarin.
“Unlike in the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions when the respective durations of martial law and the suspension of the writ were limitless, the 1987 Constitution mandates that the period of martial law and suspension of the writ shall not exceed 60 days,” the petition stated.
“It stands to reason that any authorized extension must be similarly limited in duration. For how can a mere extension be inordinately longer than the original proclamation sought to be extended?” it added.
The petitioners also said that Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, supported by the supermajority in the two chambers, “unduly constricted the period of deliberation and interpellation on the subject extension so much so that the President’s request for extension was approved baselessly and with inordinate haste.”
“The supermajority sacrificed the Constitution at the altar of presidential importuning. The rampage of the supermajority ruled the day with grave abuse of discretion and inordinate alacrity. In gutter parlance, it was a swift and wanton action ‘without thinking,'” the petitioners said.
According to them, the Constitution does not allow a series of extensions or re-extensions of a martial law proclamation, saying that it “may lead to ‘extensions in perpetuity’”.
“Threats of violence and terrorism by remnants of vanquished terrorist groups do not constitute a constitutional basis for extension of martial law because ‘imminent danger’ has been deleted as a ground for imposing martial law under the 1987 Constitution,” Lagman et al. said.
“The reextension of one full year defies the unequivocal intent and mandate of the Constitution of having a limited duration of martial law and its extension,” they added.
In October, Duterte has formally asked the Congress for the extension of Martial Law and suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in the entire Mindanao after receiving further recommendations from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP).
The chief executive cited in his letter of recommendation that the continuous threat of terrorism and rebellion in the Mindanao makes the region “the hotbed of rebellion.”
The president said that the martial law extension will help the government to completely suppress the ongoing rebellion in Mindanao.