CONSTITUTIONAL LAW I

File No. 1

I. INTRODUCTION

PREAMBLE

We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society, and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution.

1. POLITICAL LAW Is that branch of public law which deals with the organization and operation of the governmental organs of the State and defines the relations of the state with the inhabitants of its territory (Macariola vs. Asuncion, 114 SCRA 77).

Constitution – the document which serves as the fundamental law of the state; that written instrument enacted by direct action of the people by which the fundamental powers of the government are established, limited and defined, and by which those powers are distributed among the several departments for their safe and useful exercise for the benefit of the body politic.

Constitutional Law – designates the law embodied in the Constitution and the legal principles growing out of the interpretation and application of its provisions by the courts in specific cases.

2. STATE

a. Definition, distinguished from nation.

State – a community of persons, more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite portion of territory, independent of external control, and possessing a government ti which a great body of the inhabitants render habitual obedience; a politically organized sovereign community independent of outside control bound by ties of nationhood, legally supreme within its territory, acting through a government functioning under a regime of law (CIR v. Campos Rueda, 42 SCRA 23).

State is a political and geopolitical entity; while, Nation is a cultural and/ or ethnic entity.

While the distinction may be useful for purposes of political sociology, it is of little consequence for purpose of constitutional law (Bernas)

b. Territory

ARTICLE INATIONAL TERRITORY

The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.

The national territory of the Philippines comprises:1) the Philippine archipelago2) all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or

jurisdiction

Philippine Archipelago – that body of water studded with islands which is delineated in the Treaty of Paris (1898), as amended by the Treaty of Washington (1900) and the Treaty with Great Britain (1930).

- consists of itsa. Terrestrialb. Fluvial

c. Aerial domains