Declaration of Principles
and
State Policies
Article II
Principles
• The Philippines is a democratic and republican state. Sovereignty resides in the
people and all government authority emanates from them.
• Republican government is a democratic government by representatives
chosen by the people.
• Sovereignty implies the supreme authority inherent in the State by which it
is governed. This can be exercised directly through suffrage or indirectly
through public officials who are accountable to the people .
• This impliedly recognizes that the people, being the ultimate judges of their
destiny, can resort to revolution as a matter of right.
Principles
• The Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, adopts the generally accepted
principles of international law as part of the law of the land and adheres to the policy of peace, equality,
justice, freedom, cooperation and amity with nations
• This refers only to the renunciation of aggressive war and not of war in defense of the national honor and integrity.
• This also implies an automatic adoption of international law as part of the Philippine law (Doctrine of Incorporation)
• International law governs the relations of nations and their respective people in their interaction with one another.
• A treaty has a force as a statute, however, in case of conflict between the two, the treaty is superseded by the statute in point of time,
which means, the treaty still subsists as an engagement of the Philippines, although may no longer enforceable by our court.
• Constitution prevails over the treaty.
• This also shows positive attitude toward the observance of the principles of United Nations Charter and to the
universally accepted rules and principles of international law, however, it does not imply that the Philippines is duty
bound to extend diplomatic recognition to all nations
Principles
• CIVILIAN authority is, at all times, supreme over the MILITARY.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines is the protector of the
people and of the State. Its goal is to secure the sovereignty of
the state and the integrity of the national territory.
• It is inherent in a republican system.
• It is a safeguard against military dictatorship.
• The President who is a civilian stands as the Commander-in-Chief of all Armed
Forces of the Philippines (AFP) - the Army, the Navy and the Air Force
Principles
• The prime duty of the Government is to serve and protect the
people. The Government may call upon the people to defend
the state and in the fulfillment thereof, all citizens may be
required, under conditions provided by law, to render personal,
civil and military service.
• Citizens may be compelled to render personal military or civil service.
• Civil service refers to any service for the defense of the State other than as
soldiers
• Personal means one cannot render the service through another.
Principles
• The maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life, property and
liberty and promotion of the general welfare are essential enjoyment by all
the people of the blessings of democracy.
• The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable.
• This means simply that the Church is not to interfere in purely political matters or
temporal aspects of man's life and the State, in purely matters of religion and morals,
which are exclusive concerns of the other.
• Church here covers all religious institutions or faiths.
Separation of Church and State
• Establishment of religion clause (No law respecting an establishment of
religion) means:
• The State shall have no official religion;
• The State cannot set up a church, whether or not supported with public funds,
nor aid any religion or prefer one religion over another;
• Every person is free to profess belief or disbelief in any religion;
• Every religious minister is free to practice his calling;
• The State cannot punish a person for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or
disbeliefs
Separation of Church and State
• Other provisions:
• Our Constitution and laws exempt from taxation, properties devoted exclusively to
religious purposes;
• The use of public money or property is not prohibited when a priest, preacher or
dignitary as such is assigned to the AFP or to any penal institution or government
orphanage or leprosarium;
• Optional religious instruction in public elementary and high schools is by constitutional
mandate allowed;
• Maunday Thursday and good Friday of the Holy Week, Christmas Day, Sundays and all
Saints' Day are made nationwide holidays.
• The law punishes polygamy and bigamy and certain crimes against religious worship are
considered crimes against the Constitution
STATE POLICIES
• Pursues an independent foreign policy
• Foreign policy is a set of guidelines of a country to promote its national
interest in its relations with other countries
• Pursues a policy of freedom from nuclear weapon
• Pertains to the banning of the making, storing, manufacturing and even
testing in our country of the nuclear weapons, devices or part thereof
• Also includes dumping of radioactive wastes and transit within our country of
ships and planes carrying such
• Does not include use of nuclear energy for medicine, agriculture and other
peaceful or beneficial purposes
STATE POLICIES
• Promotes a just and dynamic social order
• provision of adequate social services
• promotion of full employment
• eradication of mass poverty
• Promotes social justice
• State must give preferential attention to the less fortunate members of the
society to:
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protect and enhance the right of all the people to human dignity;
reduce social, economic and political inequalities;
remove cultural inequalities;
create economic opportunities for all the citizens based on the freedom of initiative and
self-reliance
Social Justice
• Social justice is NOT social or economic equality
• Property ownership is regulated by the State
• Protection of right to property is still enforced
• Constitutional Provisions:
• prohibition on the imposition of literacy, property and other substantive
requirements for the exercise of suffrage;
• imposition of requirement that taxation shall be uniform, equitable and
progressive;
• sectoral representation in the House of Representatives and in legislative
bodies of local government;
• maintenance of independent judiciary for social justice;
Constitutional Provisions on Social Justice
• encouragement of broader-based ownership of private enterprise and equity
participation in public utilities and the duty of the state to intervene when the
common good so demands in connection with the ownership, establishments and
operations of private enterprises;
• small scale utilization of natural resources by Filipino citizens;
• limitation of the area of lands of the public domain that may be acquired by
lease, purchase, homestead or grant;
• protection of the the indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral lands;
• creation of an agency to promote cooperatives as instruments for social justice;
• regulation or prohibition of private monopolies to protect the consumer
especially the poor from exorbitant prices
• maintenance of free education
STATE POLICIES
• Values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect
for human rights
• The human person is the end and purpose of every social organization
• To ensure that this will be fully guarded, the Constitution created an
independent office called COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
• Nature: Independent from the 3 branches of the government thus the approved annual
appropriations shall be automatically and regularly released.
• Composition: A Chairman and 4 Members who are natural-born citizens of the Philippines, a
majority of whom shall be members of the bar.
• Appointment: Appointed by the President without need of confirmation from the
Commission on Appointments
• Term of Office: 7 years without reappointment
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
• Investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights
violations involving civil and political rights;
• Adopt its operational guidelines and rules of procedure, and cite for contempt for
violations thereof in accordance with the Rules of Court;
• Provide appropriate legal measures for the protection of human rights of all
persons within the Philippines, as well as Filipinos residing abroad, and provide for
preventive measures and legal aid services to the under-privileged whose human
rights have been violated or need protection;
• Exercise visitorial powers over jails, prisons, or detention facilities;
• Establish a continuing program of research, education, and information to
enhance respect for the primacy of human rights;
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
• Recommend to Congress effective measures to promote human rights and to
provide for compensation to victims of violations of human rights, or their families;
• Monitor the Philippine Government's compliance with international treaty
obligations on human rights;
• Grant immunity from prosecution to any person whose testimony or whose
possession of documents or other evidence is necessary or convenient to
determine the truth in any investigation conducted by it or under its authority;
• Request the assistance of any department, bureau, office, or agency in the
performance of its functions;
• Appoint its officers and employees in accordance with law;
• Perform such other duties and functions as may be provided by law.
• Recognizes sanctity of family life
STATE
POLICIES
• Family is the basic autonomous social
institution making it the foundation of
the nation.
• Family is a group of persons united
together by ties of marriage and blood.
• Marriage is an act by which a man and
woman become husband and wife or it
can be state of being married, thus,
marriage is both a contract and a status.
• Marriage is a relation of one man and
woman legally united for life, with rights
and obligations which are governed by
law, thus, marriage is an inviolable social
institution.
• Family rights a State should defend:
Family
Rights
• Right of the spouses to found a family in
accordance with their religious convictions
and the demands of responsible
parenthood;
• Right of the children to assistance,
including proper care and nutrition, and
special protection from all forms of
neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation and
other conditions prejudicial to their
development;
• Right of the family to a family living wage
and income;
• Right of families or family associations to
participate in the planning and
implementation of policies and programs
that affect them.
Family
• The family has the duty to care for its
elderly members, but the State may
also do so through just programs of
social security (housing, specialized
health care, income generation,
pensions, insurance and other social
services).
• Includes also recognition of the:
• Right to life of the mother and the unborn
• Duty of parents and State to rear the youth
for civic efficiency and development of
moral character
• Recognizes the vital role of the
youth in nation-building
STATE
POLICIES
• Promotion and protection of their
physical, moral, spiritual,
intellectual and social being
• Inculcation of patriotism and
nationalism
• Active involvement in public and
civic affairs
• Recognizes the role of women in
nation-building
STATE
POLICIES
• ensure the fundamental equality
before the law of women and men
• protect working women by providing
safe and healthful working
conditions, taking into account their
maternal functions and such
facilities and opportunities that will
enhance their welfare and enable
them to realize their full potential in
the service of the nation.
STATE
POLICIES
• Protects and promotes the right to
health of the people and instill health
consciousness among them
• Health is the state of physical, social and
mental well-being
• By ensuring the health of the people, our
human resources will be made productive
and creative and available in the service of
the country.
• The State must:
Right to
Health
• adopt an integrated and comprehensive
approach to health development that will
make essential goods, health services and
other social services available to all people at
affordable cost, giving priority for the needs of
the underprivileged sick, elderly, disabled,
women and children;
• endeavor to provide free medical care to
paupers or the poor;
• establish and maintain an effective food and
drug regulatory system;
• undertake appropriate health manpower
development and research responsive to the
country's health needs and problems;
• establish a special agency for disabled persons
for their rehabilitation, self-development and
self-reliance, and their integration to the
mainstream of the society.
STATE POLICIES
• Protects and advances the right of the people to a balanced and
healthful ecology
• Ecology pertains to the interrelationship of the the living things to it
environment
• enhance strong and vigorous economy yet living in a healthy sustainable
environment
• As defined in Article 12, lands are classified into different uses depending on
their area of condition. It is the Congress that determines the landholdings
and the conditions thereof, thus, they should take into consideration the
conservation, ecological and developmental requirements of the natural
resources.
STATE POLICIES
• Gives priority to education, science and technology, arts and culture
and sports
• Education refers to the process of training the physical, mental and moral
faculties of an individual that will provide him/her with knowledge, skills,
competence, and desirable qualities of behavior and character to render
him/her fit for the duties of life.
• Science means orderly knowledge obtained and tested through careful and
systematized search and study of facts.
• Technology is the application of scientific knowledge to practical purposes in a
particular field.
Education
• Arts is the conscious use of skill, taste and creative imagination in the practical definition
or production of beauty.
• Culture refers to all those things which go to the refining and developing of man's diverse
mental and physical endowments.
• Sports is applied to both indoor and outdoor games, plays or contests requiring individual
physical prowess or mental skill or both, usually competitive in nature, and providing a
pleasant source of diversion, amusement or pastime.
• Goals:
• foster patriotism and nationalism
• accelerate social progress
• promote total human liberation and development
STATE POLICIES
• Affirms labor as a primary social economic force
• promotion of full employment and equal work opportunities
• Rights of the workers:
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right to elf-organization
right to collective bargaining
right to collective negotiation
right to peaceful and concerted activities including the right to strike
right to security of tenure
right to just and humane conditions of work
right to a living wage
right to participate in policy and decision-making processes
STATE POLICIES
• Develops a self-reliant and independent national economy
effectively controlled by Filipinos
• national economy refers to the entire structure of economic life in a country
encompassing activities related with production, distribution and
consumption of goods and services.
• self-reliance - ability to cope with its economic struggles or to implement its
development programs by the use of its own resources
• independent economy - an economy free from undue foreign control or
intervention
• controlled by Filipinos - "The principal responsibility for development belongs
to Filipino citizens."
STATE POLICIES
• Recognizes the indispensable role of private sector, encourages private
enterprise and provides incentives to needed investments
• Promotes comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform
• covers not only the rights of the farmers and farmworkers but likewise,
distribution of lands, transfer of landownership, support services
(credit, legal aid, infrastructure, electrification, cooperative
development, farm extension, mechanization), and the landownership
and internal stability
• Fishermen and fishworkers are also given equal attention in this
provision
STATE POLICIES
• Recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural
communities within the framework of national unity and
development
• Indigenous cultural communities refer to the non-dominant groups which
possess and wish to preserve ethnic, religious or linguistic traditions or
characteristics markedly different from the rest of the country
• Encourages non-governmental, community-based or sectoral
organizations that promote the welfare of the nation.
• Recognizes the vital role of communication and information in
nation-building.
• includes not only print or broadcast media but also motion pictures,
advertising, cable, telephone, cellphone and telegraph (mass media)
STATE POLICIES
• Ensures the autonomy of local governments
• Local Government refers to the political subdivision of a nation
which is constituted by law and has substantial control of local
affairs, with officials elected or otherwise locally selected.
• Guarantees equal access to opportunities for public service,
and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law
• Maintains honesty and integrity in the public service and
take positive and effective measures against graft and
corruption
• Adopts and implements a policy
of full public disclosure of all its
transactions involving public
interest
STATE
POLICIES
• Covers all State transactions
involving public interest
• The law may prescribe conditions
for the disclosure to guard
improper and unjustified exercise
of the right