On January 21 and 23, 2022, the Philippines will commemorate two landmark events: the 123rd anniversaries of Aguinaldo’s proclamation of the Malolos Constitution and his inauguration of the First Philippine Republic at the Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan. In the saga of constitution-making in the world, it was the first constitutional Republic in all of then colonized Asia. We were the first to open the floodgates of freedom and independence in the region. And when people began thinking differently from yesterday as we did then, it changed the furrowed fields of colonial history into the recognizable faces of today’s independent and constitution-empowered Asia. We were Asia’s cradle of freedom.
Magellan’s defeat in the Battle of Mactan on April 27, 1521 foiled Spain’s first attempt to colonize the islands and showed our unquenchable desire to create our own communities of imagined perfection. The 1565 second wave of Spanish conquest succeeded in pushing back our aspirations into colonial submission that lasted for more than three hundred long years. But we never lost an abiding faith in dreams of freedom and self-government.
Our ancient heart was both enduring and patient. The Cadiz Constitution of 1812 declared Spain’s dominions overseas (including the Philippines) as part of the Spanish nation and their subjects as citizens of Spain. We were given a seat in constitutional governance and we sent Ventura de los Reyes of Vigan as our representative to the Spanish Cortez. It was a quantum leap of forward movement that stoke the ancient fires of self- governance. But Spain suffered difficulties and decided, in 1837, to govern the islands through special laws. Our seat in the table of constitutional governance vanished and we were reduced to being governed through special laws.
We grieved against our Spanish overlords. Our discontent smoldered and, from 1800 to 1872, we made them feel our lamentations with eleven, open revolts. But we were ignored, suppressed.
When they garroted the innocent priests (Gomez, Burgos and Zamora) on February 17, 1872, our ancient heart not only grieved. It was incensed. And the boys of 1872 grew into the heroes of the pen, the sword and the moral compass. Almost single-handedly, Rizal gave clarity and voice to our discontent and created a climate of opinion that grew into a call for nationhood. The Katipuneros scrawled the call, “Viva La Independencia de Filipinas,” on the walls of Bernardo Carpio’s legendary Pamitinan caves in Montalban (now Rodriguez, Rizal) during the Holy Week of April 1895. A year later, in August 1896, Bonifacio and Aguinaldo would bring that call to the battlefields in an irrevocable cry to separate from Spain.
In those tumultuous yet luminous struggles against Spain, the boys of 1872 became the men and women of 1896. Even as they were fighting the Wars of Philippine Independence, first against Spain in swift decline (1896-1898) and then against America in swift ascent (1899-1901), they were also engaged in the task of state-ordering and nation-building.
When the Katipunan was being reorganized in late 1896 into a revolutionary government, General Edilberto Evangelista submitted a constitution but it remained unpromulgated. When Aguinaldo left Cavite for Bulacan in 1897, he established the Biak-na-Bato Republic and promulgated its constitution as prepared by Felix Ferrer and Isabelo Artacho. The Truce of Biak-na-Bato (December 15, 1897) forced Aguinaldo to go to Hong Kong in exile. Burning with revolutionary fervor, those he left behind continued to build the institutions of state order. In 1898, they framed the Makabulos Constitution of Tarlac and Jacinto’s Pagkakatatag ng Pamahalaan sa Hukuman ng Silangan.
After Spain’s defeat by the American Navy Squadron in the mock battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, Aguinaldo returned to Manila within the month (May 19, 1898) and brought with him a constitution drafted by Mariano Ponce. Aguinaldo swiftly resumed the war. He declared independence in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898, convened the Malolos Congress on September 15, 1898, proclaimed the Malolos Constitution on January 21, 1899, inaugurated the First Philippine Republic two days later, and became our first President. It was classic state-ordering in times of war. And the Malolos Constitution and the First Philippine Republic became the pinnacle achievements of our own free choice.
Within a month, however, Aguinaldo and the revolutionaries rebooted to face a second colonizer, the Americans. Spain had ceded the Philippines to the Americans for $20 million in the Treaty of Paris (December 10, 1898). The wealthy industrialist (Andrew Carnegie) offered to pay the money to keep the Philippines independent and free. But the islands were geopolitical pivots, both beautiful and irresistible, in the great, shimmering Asia-Pacific region and the Americans were expanding their world of commerce and Manifest Destiny. They snapped the possession from Spain, ship-loaded 72,000 soldiers to the islands, bankrolled the war with $300 million, and subdued the country with the final capture of Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela on March 23, 1901.
Yet the belly-fire of divergent constitution-framing did not die. In 1899, the local government of Negros proclaimed the Constitution of the Negros Canton with a federal form of government. In 1902, Macario Sakay promulgated a constitution and established the Tagalog Republic in Southern Luzon. And in 1913, Ricarte attempted to rekindle the fires of revolution and published his Rizaline Constitution. But the Americans preferred to breathe the fires of conquest and commerce.
The sublime desire for self-government and the defeat of the Spaniards, however, broke centuries of repression into the glory days of the Malolos Constitution and the First Philippine Republic. Though short-lived, both demonstrated our capacity for social ordering through the powerful impulse of law-making. The Malolos Constitution implored the aid of the Almighty in the establishment of the nation-state and created a government that was popular, representative and responsible. It defined Filipino citizenship and clarified the rights and liberties as well as the duties and responsibilities of citizens.
It divided the powers of government between the Assembly of Representatives elected in accordance with law (the legislature), the President of the Republic (the executive) elected by the Assembly and the Supreme Court and other courts as organized by law (the judiciary). The Assembly was to choose the Chief Justice with the concurrence of the President. And the Malolos Constitution instituted provincial assemblies for the local governance of the islands.
The unique feature of the Malolos Constitution was the supremacy of the legislature with its Permanent Commission, selected from Members of the Assembly, who could assume, during the recesses of the Assembly, all legislative powers including the power to adopt emergency measures. It was a hybrid parliamentary form of government with ideas that flowed from the Cadiz Constitution and the constitutions from France, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.
Conceived in sacrifice and blood, the Malolos Constitution and the First Philippine Republic became bedrocks of future constitution-making and nation-building in the country. To remember them is to honor them.
The author, Dr. Pablo S. Trillana III was a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention, a Professor of Constitutional Law (San Beda) and a Littauer Fellow Awardee, Kennedy School (Harvard).