1987 Constitution Art VIII Sec. 5(5) Promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights, pleading, practice, and procedure in all courts, the admission to the practice of law, the integrated bar, and legal assistance to the under-privileged. Such rules shall provide a simplified and inexpensive procedure for the speedy disposition of cases, shall be uniform for all courts of the same grade, and shall not diminish, increase, or modify substantive rights. Rules of procedure of special courts and quasi-judicial bodies shall remain effective unless disapproved by the Supreme Court.Based on this power, two new Rules of Court have recently been created and swiftly promulgated by the Philippine Supreme Court purportedly to address the issue of alleged extrajudicial killings of leftist activists by the Philipine Military.
It has been touted by no less than Chief Justice Reynato Puno that the Supreme Court's new rules are as "gifts to the Filipino People" in defense of their human rights. Indeed, when one examines in detail the breadth and scope of these two Rules of Court, one finds the entire Letter and Spirit of AMPARO and HABEAS DATA at the heart of Latin American Constitutions now suddenly present in writ and subpoena within the Philippine jurisdiction where before they were entirely absent!
The new Philippine Rules of Court compleatly embody the full panoply of features, rights, powers and prerogatives contained in those Latin American Constitutional rights and special protections which are found in nothing ever less than ratified Constitutions of Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and others, not mere rules of procedure.
Since neither amparo nor habeas data are found in the 1987 Philippine Constitution, yet they are clearly taken to be CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS in Latin American models openly adopted by the Supreme Court, one is rightly led to wonder about the constitutionality of the Supreme Court's act of promulgating the two new Rules on Amparo and Habeas Data.
That is to say, since amparo and habeas data are borrowed from Latin American Constitutions where they are fully ratified RIGHTS, has not the Supreme Court effectively smuggled in and established new Constitutional rights and prerogatives for certain classes of people, by the mere creation of these new "Rules" of Court--in direct violation of OUR Constitution?
But how can we even challenge the Constitutionality of the Supreme Court's own newly begotten Rules? Which it touts as the solution to grave human rights abuses? We would find the Petition for Certiorari in the kangkungan of Padre Faura wouldn't we?
Surely what are substantive rights to Latin Americans are substantive rights to Filipino citizens? If so, then fifteen Supreme Court Justices ought to be impeached if we are truly a Nation of Laws and not of Unelected Judges redacting and violating our Social Contract as if it were their Bible, that only they can understand. Don't they know it's just English Grammar and Composition and even lowly Bloggers can see beneath their Holy Robes of Good Intentions, down to the very core error of their ways?
Since amparo and habeas data are certainly substantive rights under Latin American Constitutions, and they did not exist as such in the Philippine Constitution before today, has not the Supreme Court VIOLATED Art.VIII Sec.5(5)'s prohibition on diminishing, increasing or modifying substantive rights by establishing the Rules of Amparo and Habeas Data?
Quod Erap Demonstrandum.
