Proclamation No. 58

Also known as: Proclamation 58 — the shortened citation · Proclamation No. 58, s. 1987 — the issuance-series styling · The ratification proclamation of 1987 — the descriptive reference in constitutional literature

Government

Definition

Proclamation No. 58 was the presidential proclamation of February 11, 1987 by which President Corazon C. Aquino proclaimed the ratification of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines — declaring that the charter adopted by the Constitutional Commission of 1986, “including the Ordinance appended thereto,” “has been duly ratified by the Filipino people and is therefore effective and in full force and effect.” (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58) Styled “Proclaiming the Ratification of the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines Adopted by the Constitutional Commission of 1986, Including the Ordinance Appended Thereto,” it is the instrument that closed the eleven-month transition begun by the Freedom Constitution (Proclamation No. 3 of March 25, 1986) and installed the constitutional order under which the Philippines has been governed since — the order dated as the Fifth Republic. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 3, Wikipedia — Constitution of the Philippines)

The proclamation’s factual predicate was the certification of the Commission on Elections, “sitting as the national board of canvassers for the February 2, 1987 plebiscite”: returns canvassed from 83,288 voting precincts involving 21,785,216 votes cast, of which 16,622,111 were affirmative and 4,953,375 negative — 77.04 percent to 22.96 percent in the percentages computed from the canvass — with 209,730 abstentions, the figures documented in this wiki’s entry on the 1987 constitutional plebiscite. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58, Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite) Signed at Manila by Aquino and countersigned by Executive Secretary Joker P. Arroyo, the proclamation attached the COMELEC Certificate of Canvass dated February 7, 1987 as its Annex “A,” and was issued “by virtue of the powers vested in me by the sovereign mandate of the people.” (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	N/A
Wikidata	N/A
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	Constitutional law–Philippines
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Proclamation No. 58 February 11 1987 ratification 1987 Constitution plebiscite February 2 COMELEC canvass Aquino Freedom Constitution effectivity
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Proclamation 58 — the shortened citation
Proclamation No. 58, s. 1987 — the issuance-series styling
The ratification proclamation of 1987 — the descriptive reference in constitutional literature

Examples and Analogies

A birth certificate for a constitution: the proclamation worked like a civil registrar’s certificate — it did not create the fact it recorded but gave the ratification of February 2, 1987 an authenticated public date, an exact count, and a custodian of the record, the office of the President itself. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58)
The last link of a scheduled chain: Freedom Constitution Article V set the sequence — commission, draft, plebiscite, ratification — and Proclamation No. 58 is the terminal link, the paperwork that told the nation the machinery had completed its run. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 3)
Verified documentary data:
Title: “Proclaiming the Ratification of the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines Adopted by the Constitutional Commission of 1986, Including the Ordinance Appended Thereto”
Date and place: February 11, 1987, Manila; signed by President Corazon C. Aquino; countersigned by Executive Secretary Joker P. Arroyo
Recitals: the Constitutional Commission of 1986 adopted the Constitution on October 15, 1986, with the appended Ordinance, to become “valid and effective upon ratification by a majority of the votes cast” in a plebiscite
COMELEC certification recited: 83,288 voting precincts canvassed; 21,785,216 votes cast; affirmative 16,622,111; negative 4,953,375; abstentions 209,730; Certificate of Canvass dated February 7, 1987 attached as Annex “A”
Operative clause: the Constitution “has been duly ratified by the Filipino people and is therefore effective and in full force and effect”
What it displaced: the Freedom Constitution (Proclamation No. 3, March 25, 1986), which lapsed upon the new charter’s effectivity

Usage Scenarios

1. Citing the Charter’s Effectivity

Legal writing fixes the 1987 Constitution’s commencement through this proclamation: the plebiscite of February 2 supplied the ratification, and Proclamation No. 58 of February 11 announced the charter effective and in force — the two dates between which any effectivity argument must travel. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58, LawPhil — 1987 Constitution)

2. Teaching the Post-EDSA Transition

The proclamation is the end-point marker of the transition this wiki’s family of entries traces — Freedom Constitution to Constitutional Commission of 1986 (convened June 2, 1986) to plebiscite to proclamation — the case study in converting revolutionary authority into constitutional authority inside eleven months. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 3, Wikipedia — Constitutional Commission of 1986)

3. Comparing Ratification Records

Set beside Proclamation No. 1102 of January 17, 1973 — which certified the 1973 Constitution’s ratification from barangay citizens’-assembly tallies recited by the presidency itself — Proclamation No. 58 shows the deliberate procedural contrast: a constitutional commission administering an audited secret-ballot count, a COMELEC certificate of canvass, and the abstentions separately stated. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58, Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)

4. Marking Constitution Day

Because the proclamation recites the February 2 plebiscite as the act of ratification, the civic anniversary is kept on that date — Constitution Day — even though the instrument that announced the result issued nine days later. (Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)

Strategies

Let the canvass speak first: the proclamation’s operative paragraph rests entirely on the COMELEC certification it recites and attaches — the drafters made an independent electoral record, not a presidential assertion, carry the proclamation’s weight. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58)
Announce, then swear: the proclamation was paired with the February 11, 1987 pledging of allegiance by the President, government officials, and the Armed Forces — proclamation and oath together converting a canvass into a working government, as this wiki’s plebiscite entry records. (Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)
Repeat the mandate formula: issuing the proclamation “by virtue of the powers vested in me by the sovereign mandate of the people” repeated the Freedom Constitution’s own ground of authority — continuity in the revolutionary claim even as the revolutionary charter retired. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 3, LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58)
For researchers: quote the operative clause exactly — the text declares the Constitution “effective and in full force and effect” from its February 11 issuance and contains no express retroactive clause; the practice of dating the charter’s effectivity to the February 2 ratification rests on the proclamation’s recitals and on subsequent usage, so state which convention a chronology follows. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58)

Security and Safety Measures

An audited count as the factual floor: attaching the COMELEC Certificate of Canvass and reciting precinct-level scope (83,288 precincts) gave the proclamation a verifiable evidentiary basis — the safeguard against the count-management disputes that had discredited the 1973 ratification and the 1986 snap election alike. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58, Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)
A supermajority as insulation: ratification by better than three to one left the new order a wide consensus base, so the proclamation announced a settlement rather than a contested result — the stability margin the transition’s designers worked for. (Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)
The self-liquidating provisional order: by letting the Freedom Constitution lapse, the proclamation ended the interim concentration of legislative power in the presidency — the sunset discipline that kept transitional rule from becoming permanent rule. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 3)
Peaceful sequencing: the proclamation was followed by the May 1987 legislative elections under the new charter’s rules — offices filled by ballot rather than by decree, completing the restoration the proclamation proclaimed. (Wikipedia — Constitution of the Philippines)

Historical Context

The proclamation was drafted into a schedule set on March 25, 1986, when Aquino issued the Freedom Constitution a month after the EDSA People Power Revolution and ordered, in its Article V, a 30-to-50-member commission to draft a permanent charter within sixty days. The Constitutional Commission of 1986 — 48 members under Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, convened June 2, 1986 — approved its draft on October 12 and presented it on October 15; the plebiscite followed on February 2, 1987; and on February 11 Aquino signed Proclamation No. 58, with the President, officials, and the Armed Forces pledging allegiance to the Constitution that day. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 3, Wikipedia — Constitutional Commission of 1986, Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)

With the proclamation the Fifth Republic’s institutional sequence began: the restored bicameral Congress elected in May 1987, the constitutional commissions entrenched in Article IX, and the expanded judicial power of Article VIII — the charter that, as this wiki’s Constitution of the Philippines entry records, has never been amended. The proclamation itself has remained the standard citation for the charter’s commencement in official compilations, and February 2 — the date it recites — is commemorated as Constitution Day. (LawPhil — 1987 Constitution, Wikipedia — Constitution of the Philippines)

Challenges and Controversies

February 2 or February 11?

The charter’s effectivity date is the proclamation’s standing ambiguity: the text declares the Constitution “effective and in full force and effect” as of its February 11 issuance, without an express retroactive clause, while secondary accounts — including reference works in general circulation — date the effectivity to the February 2 ratification itself. Both conventions trace to this single document, one to its operative clause and the other to its recitals; writers should state which they follow. (LawPhil — Proclamation No. 58, Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)

Ratification Under a Revolutionary Order

The authority that called the plebiscite and issued the proclamation derived from the Freedom Constitution, itself a decree of a revolutionary government — the self-referential structure critics raised against the whole 1986–87 process. Defenders answer with the audited canvass, the 77-percent margin, and the peaceful succession that followed, the debate examined in this wiki’s entries on the Freedom Constitution and the plebiscite. (Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite, LawPhil — Proclamation No. 3)

The Excluded Returns

The certified figures the proclamation recites omitted late-arriving returns from several provinces — among them Davao del Sur, Eastern Samar, and Zamboanga del Sur — a canvass decision documented in the plebiscite record and cited both as reasonable canvass discipline and as an early precedent for count-management controversies in Philippine elections. The exclusion could not have changed the outcome, but it belongs to any faithful account of the numbers the proclamation recites. (Wikipedia — 1987 plebiscite)