DOJ should investigate call for revolutionary gov't —1986 ConCom member Monsod

One of the framers of the 1987 Constitution on Monday said the Department of Justice should investigate what he said was an "extraconstitutional" call for the establishment of a revolutionary government.

Christian Monsod, also a former chairman of the Commission on Elections, said proposing a revolutionary government is an act of sedition.

"Dapat 'yung Department of Justice should already investigate this with the end purpose of filing a case of sedition against these people," Monsod said in an interview on Dobol B sa News TV.

He recalled the DOJ's investigation of sedition complaints against opposition figures, including Vice President Leni Robredo, on allegations of their involvement in a supposed plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.

The investigation led to the filing of charges for "conspiracy to commit sedition" against former senator Antonio Trillanes IV and 10 others in court. Robredo and several others were cleared.

A member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission, Monsod explained that a revolutionary government is not provided by the fundamental law of the land, making it "extraconstitutional" regardless of who heads it.

Monsod said he does not think the military will agree with such a proposal, saying there are many constitutionalists in the Armed Forces.

Talks of a revolutionary government, which was raised by Duterte himself two years ago, resurfaced after a group of his supporters in Pampanga renewed calls for it last Saturday.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and the Philippine National Police said they do not support the proposal.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra over the weekend said the issue "is more political than legal, because it touches on the sovereign rights of the people themselves."

For his part, Integrated Bar of the Philippines president Domingo Egon Cayosa said there is "no legal, factual, practical or moral basis for a revolutionary government under the present circumstances."

"A revolutionary government is repugnant to constitutionalism.  It should be discouraged and denounced, as we do now," Cayosa said Sunday.

He said current national issues are better addressed by good governance under the rule of law "rather than by questionable shortcuts of adventurism that exacerbate rather than solve the problems."

"The call for a revolutionary government may at best be excused as a constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression, but it should not be allowed to progress into actions that violate existing laws," the IBP chief said.—AOL, GMA News