Nowhere is the cavalier demeanor and perhaps Machiavellianism of charter change proponents more pronounced than in their deletion of the word “love” in the preamble of a draft Constitution.
According to the Lower House subcommittee on constitutional amendments, “the word ‘love’ was deleted because it has no place in the Constitution.”
Such commentary indicates poor research if not a malicious effort to remold the national order via selective amnesia towards the recent past.
Did members of the subcommittee led by Leyte Rep. Vicente Veloso do their homework? If they did, they would have rediscovered the historical, sociopolitical and philosophical underpinnings to the inclusion of love in the preamble to the 1987 Constitution.
Speaking on Oct. 15, 1986 at the final session of the 48-strong commission that drafted the current Constitution, their president Cecilia Muñoz-Palma provided us with clear explanations for the role of love in our national life.
“For the first time in the history of constitution-making in this country, the word ‘love’ is enshrined in the fundamental law,” said Muñoz-Palma, a retired Supreme Court associate justice.
“This is most significant at this period in our national life when the nation is bleeding under the forces of hatred and violence.
“Love which begets understanding is necessary if reconciliation is to be achieved among the warring factions and conflicting ideologies now gripping the country.
Love is imperative if peace is to be restored in our native land, for without love there can be no peace.”
Delfin Felipe, a research staffer of the 1986 Constitutional Commission wrote that our embrace of love as a principle of basic law manifests our aspiration to “[let] our fellow Filipinos know — by deeds and not sweet words alone — that we are greatly interested in their attaining their fullest possible development as persons.”
If a new national order is to be inaugurated that is based solely on the whims and caprices of the supermajority under the aegis of Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban, then by all means charter drafters may, if charter change is indeed looming, strike out “love” and face the fallout.
Otherwise, let everyone remember that love remains relevant to every Filipino because the situations that called for it in 1986 — hatred, violence, lack of understanding, underdevelopment — persist today, sadly and often at the hands of supposed public servants.
The rejection of love as a driving force of national life will only underline the villainy and tyranny behind the masks of benignity donned by many in the halls of power.
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