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Atty. Evalyn G. Ursua on Article 10 of the Peoples Initiative -- !" !

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The repealing clause of the bill does not clip the plenary power of the Congress to
legislate on all matters. It only pertains to this one piece of proposed legislation.
Our legal basis is Article VI, Section 1 of the Constitution. It provides: "The
legislative power shall be vested in the Congress of the Philippines which shall
consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives, except to the extent reserved
to the people by the provision on initiative and referendum."
What Congress has is merely delegated legislative power. What is reserved to the
people is their sovereign power to legislate laws. The delegated power cannot be
superior to the sovereign power. How is sovereign power circumscribed? Only
the Constitution, and to some extent the enabling legislation, can circumscribe
the reserved sovereign power of the people.
There is no prohibition in the Constitution against the people setting the terms of
the repeal of a law passed by initiative. Neither does the enabling legislation
circumscribe the people's sovereign power to legislate insofar as the repealing
clause is concerned.
There are two provisions in Article VI (on the legislative department) in the
Constitution that are relevant:

Section 1. The legislative power shall be vested in the Congress of the
Philippines which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives,
except to the extent reserved to the people by the provision on initiative and
referendum.

Section 32. The Congress shall, as early as possible, provide for a system of
initiative and referendum, and the exceptions therefrom, whereby the people can
directly propose and enact laws or approve or reject any act or law or part thereof
passed by the Congress or local legislative body after the registration of a petition
therefor signed by at least ten per centum of the total number of registered
voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per
centum of the registered voters thereof.
Nothing is said in those provisions that the people cannot ordain in the bill that it
cannot be repealed or amended except by the system of initiative. If you examine
the enabling legislation (RA 6735), which is the law passed in implementation of
Section 32 above, it sets no limitation either on the manner of amendment or
repeal of a law passed by the people through national initiative.

Given that this is an exercise of the sovereign power of the people -- that they
reserved to themselves in the Constitution -- the repealing clause is perfectly
within the exercise of that reserved sovereign power. And the delegated power
cannot be used to defeat that, unless they can point to a pertinent limitation
either in the Constitution or in the enabling law.

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