The neglected Article 14 of the Philippine Constitution

One of the things I learned in law school, particularly in my Constitutional Law subject, is that the Philippine Constitution is excessively long compared to other Constitutions from other sovereignties. Our Philippine Constitution compared to others touches on a lot of different subjects which made the document sound like a political speech instead of stating only basic precepts. [1] As said the Constitution is the fundamental law of the land of which all other laws and statutes should adhere to but with certain topics such as sports, love, drugs and even advertising it provided less leeway for legislature to create laws involving those concerns. But with the inclusion of these precepts onto the Constitution should it not be easier to handle concerns regarding those topics as the Constitution already provides the fundamental stance at which these social concerns should be addressed?

                 Article 14 of the Constitution deals with five basic social precepts namely Education, Language, Science and Technology, Arts and Culture and Sports. Again, with the inclusion of these social aspects in the Constitution it should be fundamental on how the country should handle when faced with issues with regards to the said concerns. But with it already fundamental why is there lag time and/or negligence happening when it comes to dealings with this issue. For example in Education, the recent implementation of the K-12 education was applauded but little did people know that the entire world is already on a 12-year basic education system and the Philippines is only behind two countries in implementing this: Djibouti and Angola. [2] Who? In Section 16 of Article 14 under Arts and Culture which in part said that all the country’s historic wealth shall be under the protection of the State which may regulate it’s disposition but then we cannot muster the will to have the Torre de Manila removed in order to respect the monument of our National Hero. Under Section 19 of the same article which deals with Sports says that the State will promote and encourage sports programs which would include training for international competitions. Our government provided a P962M budget for our delegation to the SEA Games which yielded us 6th place overall. Our SEA neighbors for their part gave an equivalent of P14.37B budget for Sports for Thailand and the tiny country of Singapore had P7.2B allotted for their SEAG delegation which help them garner 2^nd and 5^th place respectively. That puts them both ahead of us in the final tally. [3] So much for promoting when we can obviously see that there is a decline in the overall quality of Sports in the Philippines.

                Perhaps it is very timely that this kind of discussion is being made with the 30^th anniversary of the EDSA revolution just around the corner and that this topic revolves around its most important by-product, the 1987 Constitution. There has been a lot of calls for Charter Change and Constitutional Amendments which would allow the re-organization of the government as a whole. If ever that comes to fruition it would also be good to re-evaluate as well some of the precepts put forth in 1987 Constitution which was supposedly included to guide us in dealings with these concerns but with it being neglected it just add length to it which basically negates the fundamental existence of it. If it’s still going to be included then the State should fulfill its duties on promoting the general welfare of these social precepts as it becomes part of their mandate to do so by making it part of the Constitution. If they continue to neglect them then perhaps it should be stricken off it as it only shows how much the 1987 Constitution is failing to provide a better government for the people which is contrary to the idea of the EDSA Revolution which was aimed to end a tyrant regime and in its place a better and improved Government defined by the lengthy 1987 Constitution.              

[1] Philippine Political Law by Isagani Cruz 2014 Ed.

[2] http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2015/06/15/1466151/challenges-basic-education-dealing-k-12  

[3] http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/534198/sports/othersports/philippine-sports-remains-a-pauper-when-it-comes-to-funding