As Framers of the 1987 Constitution, we are compelled to take a strong and clear stand against a law that betrays the letter and spirit of our fundamental law and divides our people when our greatest need is to unite against a common foe, a deadly contagion that threatens not only the health of our people but their sources of livelihood. What is at stake is the survival of the most vulnerable in our society.

The Charter was drafted and popularly approved in a plebiscite in the aftermath of one of the darkest chapters in our history when the rule of law was violated with impunity. The people, long inured to the rule of despots and oppressors cast their hopes in the Constitution as the bulwark against the abuses of the State and thus as the protector of people’s rights by limiting the exercise of the extraordinary powers of the State.