Professor Antonio La Viña on Duterte’s “State of Lawlessness”

In the following post, Professor Tony La Viña discusses the constitutional grounds for the exercise of extraordinary powers by the President, giving examples of when and how these powers have been used by Presidents in the recent past. He then cautions against “the slippery slope of frequent recourse to an emergency rule” and concludes that for now, President Duterte’s declaration of a state of lawless violence in the country “does not appear to lead us to that slope but that we must be vigilant.”

The statement was originally posted on Prof. La Viña’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tonylavs/posts/10154512816511967. It has subsequently been published at https://rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/making-sense-duterte-declaration-state-of-lawlessness and http://interaksyon.com/article/132081/making-sense-of-dutertes-declaration-of-state-of-lawlessness.