1943 Philippine Constitution

The establishment of the 1943 Philippine Constitution went through no easy means It wasn’t even the projected Constitution the country’s leaders were aiming for; rather, it was supposed to be the 1935 Constitution Just as the nation was finally starting to get a taste of what independence tasted like with its newly established Constitution, all dreams came crashing down with the infamous quote mentioned later in the paper, “Bataan has fallen” But, with the exchanges of letters between a few key figures, the Philippines, later on, regained the promised freedom and independence, finally liberating the nation from colonial shackles.

Before the period of Japanese occupation, the Filipino people ratified the 1935 Constitution This version of the constitution was set to stay until July 4, 1946, when Philippine independence was promised The Implementation of the 1935 Constitution was seeing light as the National Assembly of the Philippines amended it in 1940 The legislative assembly of the Philippines was shifted from a unicameral one to a bicameral congress The term limit of the President was then changed to four years with a possibility of being reelected for a second term However, when the Japanese army arrived and occupied the country, the Philippine Constitution was once again changed into one that benefitted the Japanese more, resulting in the 1943 Constitution. In it, the Second Republic with Jose P. Laurel as the President had a strong Executive Power for those in position, and a Unicameral National Legislative Assembly, but the one in the National Assembly MUST be Anti-USA. This then continued on for only a few years as the USA came back to liberate the Philippines from Japanese rule. The Philippines then proceeded in using the 1935 Constitution until the Marcos regime.

The 1943 Constitution did its best to safeguard the lives of the Filipinos from the Japanese and any sort of human rights infringements throughout the Japanese Occupation. The Republic of the Philippines back then could be described as a Constitutional Dictatorship. This was because the constitution was drafted during a state of emergency, in which the Republic of the Philippines was under the hands and control of the Japanese. Because of that, much power was given to the President and the Executive Powers. The Philippines, however, fell to much of the Japanese’s influence – an enforced strict curfew, Japanese currency, an institutionalized military government, and a reduction by half of the neighborhood government systems