on P.D. 1017

The legal realist Karl Llewelyn wrote, "the working Constitution is amended whenever the basic ways of government are changed." What I think he was trying to say is that we should not rely too much on the text of the Constitution or the language of any authoritative text as a source of security, and that the kind of democracy we signed up for may be altered through interpretation by those who hold public power. Thus, we should scrutinize not only what the Constitution says, but what the President says it means; that we should rely not simply on what the President says, but on what she actually does. If we fail to heed this advice, we might find ourselves holding the same Constitution, but with an entirely different meaning.-Atty. Hilbay of Bantay Katarungan