Guevarra notes, however, that extension of 60-day martial law rests in Congress as provided for also in Constitution
(Eagle News) — Rep. Lito Atienza on Wednesday said that approving a one-year extension of martial law in Mindanao would be tantamount to circumventing the Constitution which said that martial law could be imposed for a period of 60 days.
“I’d like to be enlightened again…How can the extension be longer than the original,” he said before the joint session of Congress aimed at determining the fate of President Rodrigo Duterte’s one-year proposal.
But Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra said that the “matter of the validity or constitutionality of an extension is provided in the Constitution itself.”
Section 18 of Article 7, he said, specifies that “the power or prerogative to extend the original period of 60 days as declared by the president rests with Congress.”
“The specific wording of that provision says that ‘upon initiative of the pres, initiative only, Congress in a joint session may extend the period of martial law for such period of time, as it may deem proper or necessary.’ So it’s really in the hands of Congress,” he said.
He noted that “all the President needs to do is to show factual basis for the continuing declaration of martial law.”