Draft Constitution of the Federal Republic of the Philippines Simplified

Foreword: This draft constitution consists of twenty-two articles compared to the eighteen articles of the 1987 Constitution.

PREAMBLE

We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, to build a permanent and indissoluble nation and establish a just, humane, united, and progressive society under a government that shall embody our shared ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution of the Federal Republic of the Philippines.

*Notice the emphasis on a permanent and indissoluble nation and the new name of the country as Federal Republic of the Philippines.

ARTICLE I NATIONAL TERRITORY

SECTION I. The Philippines has sovereignty over its territory, consisting of the islands and waters encompassed by its archipelagic baselines, its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, and its airspace. It has sovereignty over islands and features outside its archipelagic baselines pursuant to the laws of the Federal Republic, the law of nations, and the judgments of competent international courts or tribunals. It likewise has sovereignty over other territories belonging to the Philippines by historic right or legal title.

SECTION 2. The Philippines has sovereign rights over that maritime expanse beyond its territorial sea to the extent reserved to it by international law, as well as over its extended continental shelf, including the Philippine Rise. Its citizens shall enjoy the right to all resources within these areas.

*Notice the emphasis on sovereignty outside the archipelagic baselines and the mention of law of nations and judgments of international courts in Section 1 while Section 2 focuses on the maritime territory pertaining to the disputed islands such that it explicitly mentions the Philippine Rise.

(To be continued in the next issue of the BALITA)