Just launched at the Manila Hotel was the legacy book of the 1971 ConCon delegates
By Pablo S. Trillana III
Poetry, Pablo Neruda said, is always in search of everyone, without a face and without a voice. And when it arrives, whether one is happy or not, the inner spirit swirls with the winds and creates enchantment.
At the beginning of 2020, surviving delegates of the 1971-1972 Constitutional Convention began discussing how best to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Of the original 320 delegates elected in November 1970 to write a new constitution, only 39 remain today. They helped frame the 1973 constitution as the bedrock of a new social order, free from the colonial baggage of the past and inspired by the emergent future of hopes and possibilities.
The group was convened by Mindoro delegate Ricardo Quintos and chaired by Senator and Zambales delegate Richard Gordon. Its core group included delegates Hilario Davide, Jr., Adolfo Azcuna, Teofisto Guingona, Pablo Trillana III, Lilia de Lima, Amado Tolentino, Jr., Margarito Teves, Leandro Garcia, Elizabeth Chiongbian-Johnston, Jose Leviste, Jr., and Victor Ortega.
During the discussions, Lilia de Lima threw a curve ball of an idea. Skew traditional celebrations, she advised, and write instead a book about the convention where the delegates themselves could tell their stories from their hearts. The winds of the idea swirled and enchanted the delegates. In the vernacular, narahuyo sila.
Through the vortex of the two-year unwanted and disruptive Covid-19 pandemic, the delegates silently threaded the needles of remembrance and reflection. They wrote and landed the curve ball on a home run. On March 19, 2022, the delegates celebrated the 50th anniversary of the convention by launching their book called A Legacy of Hope and Possibilities: The 1971 Constitutional Convention. Published by Ricardo Quintos, the delegates unveiled and signed the book at the Manila Hotel, the very place where they themselves inaugurated and held their proceedings 50 years ago.
All the articles and features of the book flowed as the language and narratives of the delegates themselves save one. A young historiographer, Aimee Bettina Bautista, researched on the convention and provided her own reflections on the meaning and purpose of that important part of Philippine history. She called it a walk with history.
The provisions of the 1973 Constitution, according to the book, were historic, groundbreaking, foundational, and forward-looking. The delegates reframed and repurposed the past, the present, and the future into their integral connections as parts of the same unbroken whole, weaving their narratives into a constitution that prevailed through the frosty edginess of a supervening martial law.
The delegates “clarified our territorial boundaries, expanded our bill of rights, deepened our declaration of principles with emphasis on the supremacy of civilian authority over the military, reduced the voting age to 18 and made the youth a more inclusive agent of decision-making, emphasized not just the rights but also the duties of citizenship, strengthened the judiciary, fused the executive and the legislative into a parliament where, through the ingenious psychology of the no confidence vote, the government could become more responsible and accountable, promoted the greater autonomy of local governments and introduced the system of recall, created three constitutional commissions (the civil service, elections, and audit), emphasized that public office is a public trust and instituted two accountability offices (the Sandiganbayan and the Ombudsman), clarified and enlarged the provisions on the economic patrimony of the nation, and further enlarged the general provisions of previous constitutions by including such mandates as academic freedom for institutions of higher learning, the recognition of the traditions and interests of cultural minorities, and the training of a citizen army.”
The delegates celebrated their golden anniversary in an intergenerational communion of good will with the youth. Ages 12 to 18 and called the STA Concert Chorus from Bulacan, they serenaded the delegates with kundimans, grateful for the company and presence of the very delegates who reduced the voting age from 21 to 18. As a result, three choir members, like many others in similar circumstances around the country, would be able to vote for the first time in the coming May elections.
As the delegates look back today, they could see the arc of history that brought them through different wood paths into the light of a collective and often remembered silk road: the 1971 Constitutional Convention.
As the delegates look back today, they could see the arc of history that brought them through different wood paths into the light of a collective and often remembered silk road: the 1971 Constitutional Convention. They remained active both in public and private service for the country’s good. Fernan, Yap, and Davide became chief justices of the Supreme Court, Azcuna an SC associate justice, Guingona a vice-president as well as a senator as did Roco, Alvarez, Angara, and Gordon. Many became cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries and directors-general, ambassadors, justices and judges of lower courts, congressmen, governors and mayors, and high executives of international development banks, prestigious law firms, corporate conglomerates, universities, colleges, and academies. The delegates therefore did not stay on the sidelines of national life. Bending the better scales of the universe in favor of our future, they in fact walked history into that future.
In his introduction to the book, Ricardo Quintos, the publisher, emphasized that many of the substantive provisions of their common efforts remain robust and integral precepts of the nation’s social order. He recognized that not everyone is a poet and a saint. But it moved him to write that the collective efforts of the delegates may perhaps find resonance in the words of William Somerset Maugham: “Only the poet and saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will reward his labor.”