1971 Constitutional Convention

Also known as: ConCon 1971 — the common Philippine shorthand · The 1971 ConCon — the dated styling of the martial-law literature · The Constitutional Convention — the referent of the phrase in accounts of the Marcos era · The convention of the 1973 Constitution — the functional designation · The 1970-elected convention — the precision styling acknowledging the November 10, 1970 election

Government

Definition

The 1971 Constitutional Convention (formally the Constitutional Convention of 1971) was the constituent assembly elected to replace the 1935 Constitution — 320 delegates chosen in a nonpartisan special election on November 10, 1970 and convened at the Manila Hotel on June 1, 1971, hence the year of its conventional name. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1970 ConCon election) Its presidency spanned the convention’s whole instability: former President Carlos P. Garcia was sworn in as convention president on June 1, 1971 and died thirteen days later, on June 14, 1971 — the timing this wiki’s Carlos P. Garcia entry documents — whereupon former President Diosdado Macapagal succeeded him and presided over the body’s remaining life, with Sotero H. Laurel (Batangas 3rd) as President Pro-Tempore. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Carlos P. Garcia, Wikipedia — Diosdado Macapagal)

The convention’s two-year record runs from reform to captivity. Its benches held future national figures — Hilario Davide Jr., Marcelo Fernan, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Teofisto Guingona Jr., Raul Roco, Edgardo Angara, Richard Gordon — and its most divisive fight was the attempt to bar Ferdinand Marcos from continuing in power; but its discrediting came first, in the bribery controversies of 1972 — above all Leyte delegate Eduardo Quintero’s May 19, 1972 allegation of a “Money Lobby” paying delegates to back provisions favoring the Marcoses — and then in Proclamation No. 1081, which overwhelmed the body this wiki’s 1973 Constitution entry describes as having “completed its draft in captivity of circumstance”: eleven opposition delegates arrested, the rules suspended, a 166-member group under Gilberto Duavit drafting afresh. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution) The convention approved its draft on November 29, 1972 — Macapagal “reluctantly putting his signature” — and presented it to Marcos at Malacañang on December 1, 1972, marking the end of the Constitutional Convention’s task; the charter became the 1973 Constitution through the citizens’-assembly ratification of January 10–15, 1973 certified by Proclamation No. 1102 and insulated from review by Javellana v. Executive Secretary. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, LawPhil — Javellana)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	1971 Philippine Constitutional Convention
Wikidata	Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971 (Q56064048)
DBpedia	Philippine_Constitutional_Convention_of_1971
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	constitutional convention (English compound noun — “a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution”; the generic term, not the 1971 body)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A (the convention has no dedicated heading; Philippine charter-making is cataloged under Constitutional history—Philippines, the heading this wiki’s 1973 Constitution entry carries)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	1971 Constitutional Convention Philippines 320 delegates November 10 1970 election Garcia Macapagal president Money Lobby Quintero bribery term limit ban Marcos martial law September 1972 arrested delegates Duavit draft November 29 1972
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

ConCon 1971 — the common Philippine shorthand
The 1971 ConCon — the dated styling of the martial-law literature
The Constitutional Convention — the referent of the phrase in accounts of the Marcos era
The convention of the 1973 Constitution — the functional designation
The 1970-elected convention — the precision styling acknowledging the November 10, 1970 election

Examples and Analogies

A convention elected before the storm: like a jury seated just before the courthouse is occupied, the delegates were freely chosen in November 1970, convened in June 1971 — and by its second anniversary worked under a proclamation that arrested its opposition bloc and rewrote its rules: the sequence this wiki’s 1973 Constitution entry compresses as drafting “in captivity of circumstance.” (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)
The ban that failed by success: 176 of 206 delegates signed Napoleon Rama’s resolution to bar a former president from the presidency again — the assembly nearly unanimous against continuation — yet the clause vanished from the final draft, the arithmetic of signatures outrun by the arithmetic of arrests. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)
A “Money Lobby” as the convention’s mid-life crisis: Quintero’s sworn statement — P11,150 he said reached delegates backing the Marcoses, fourteen persons named including twelve fellow delegates and Imelda Marcos — converted the convention’s budget fight into its credibility fight, the discrediting this wiki’s 1973 entry records as the bribery controversy preceding martial law. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)
Verified documentary data:
Election: special election November 10, 1970; 320 delegates, all seated as nonpartisan; turnout 68.11 percent of 9,811,431 registered voters; apportioned by province and city with multi-member slates of varying size (Wikipedia — 1970 ConCon election)
Convening: June 1, 1971, Manila Hotel; Carlos P. Garcia sworn in as president that day; died thirteen days later, June 14, 1971; Diosdado Macapagal succeeded from June 14, 1971 (his record listing the presidency to January 17, 1973, the position abolished); Sotero H. Laurel President Pro-Tempore (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Carlos P. Garcia, Wikipedia — Diosdado Macapagal)
Prominent delegates: former senators Raul Manglapus and Roseller T. Lim; former presidents Garcia (Bohol 3rd) and Macapagal (Pampanga 1st); future leaders Hilario Davide Jr., Marcelo Fernan, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Teofisto Guingona Jr., Raul Roco, Edgardo Angara, Richard Gordon, Margarito Teves (Wikipedia — 1970 ConCon election)
Term-limit fight: the congressional resolution calling the convention had its own term-bar defeated in Congress by a narrow vote; 176 of 206 delegates signed Rama’s ban resolution; the Manglapus committee drafted the clause “No person who has served as President of the Philippines shall be eligible to occupy the same office,” extended to spouses and relatives — the clauses later dropped from the final draft (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)
Bribery record: May 19, 1972 — Quintero’s allegation that delegates including himself had been receiving money from a “Money Lobby,” P11,150 specified, his sworn statement naming 14 persons (12 delegates, delegate Artemio Mate’s wife, and Imelda Marcos); the standard account of the charter records the convention “stained with manifest bribery and corruption,” with the term-limit removal the most controversial matter and — in many contemporaries’ view — the convention’s true reason for being called (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)
Martial law: Proclamation No. 1081 signed September 21, 1972, announced September 23; the 400-name arrest list included convention members; eleven opposition delegates arrested in the early hours of September 22 — Napoleon Rama, Jose Mari Velez, Bren Guiao, Jose Concepcion Jr., Teofisto Guingona Jr., Jose Nolledo, Alejandro Lichauco, Ernesto Rondon, Bacalzo among them, with other accounts adding Antonio Araneta, Voltaire Garcia, and Heherson Alvarez; Manglapus abroad, Roco evading arrest; the venue transferred in 1972 to the then-newly completed Quezon City Hall (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)
The Duavit draft: the convention’s regular rules suspended; a 166-member group headed by Marcos-supporting delegate Gilberto Duavit produced a new draft, reaching Malacañang only two months after the proclamation (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)
End: November 29, 1972 — the convention approved the draft, Macapagal reluctantly signing; December 1, 1972 — presented to Marcos at Malacañang, “marking the end of the Constitutional Convention’s task”; the record’s infobox dating the disbanding to the November 29 adjournment (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)
Ratification: Presidential Decree No. 86-A (January 5, 1973) cancelled the plebiscite in favor of viva voce voting by citizens’ assemblies, January 10–15, 1973; Proclamation No. 1102 (January 17, 1973) announced “the ratification by the Filipino people of the Constitution proposed by the 1971 Constitutional Convention” — the certified count 14,976,561 for against 743,869; Javellana v. Executive Secretary (March 31, 1973) declined to invalidate the certification, six of ten justices finding the ratification invalid yet the question political (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, LawPhil — Javellana, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying Constitution-Making Under Authoritarian Pressure

The convention is the standing Philippine case of a freely elected constituent body captured mid-course — the “overwhelmed by Proclamation No. 1081” record this wiki’s 1973 Constitution and Proclamation No. 1081 entries both carry — set against the freer processes of 1934 and 1986. (Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution, Wikipedia — Proclamation No. 1081)

2. Tracing the Term-Limit Fight

The ban-Marcos campaign inside the convention — Rama’s 176-signature resolution, the Manglapus committee’s absolute bar extending to spouses and relatives, and the clauses’ disappearance — is the documented core of the argument that the 1973 Constitution’s making was engineered for continuation in power. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)

3. Researching the Money Lobby Allegations

Quintero’s May 1972 statement — the amounts, the fourteen names, the first lady among them — and the “manifest bribery and corruption” verdict of the standard account give researchers the paper trail of the convention’s discrediting, the episodes preceding the proclamation by three months. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)

4. Documenting the Delegates’ Fates

The September 22, 1972 arrests — eleven opposition delegates taken, Manglapus and Roco abroad or in hiding, the arrested released only later — quantify martial law’s first stroke against the convention, the record this wiki’s martial-law entries preserve name by name. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)

5. Following the Charter to Ratification

From the December 1, 1972 transmittal through PD 86-A, the January 10–15, 1973 citizens’ assemblies, Proclamation 1102’s certification, and Javellana‘s political-question disposition — the convention’s product travels the ratification drama this wiki’s 1973 Constitution entry documents in full. (LawPhil — Javellana, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)

Strategies

Elect the bench nonpartisan, capture it anyway: the November 1970 balloting seated all 320 as nonpartisan — no party labels to seize — yet the money and the arrests found their faction (Duavit’s 166) regardless: a lesson in how nominal nonpartisanship fares against an incumbent’s machinery. (Wikipedia — 1970 ConCon election, Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)
Fight continuation with a clause: the opposition bloc’s chosen weapon was textual — the absolute bar on re-occupying the presidency — and its near-passage (176 of 206 signatures) shows how close the convention came to disarming the incumbent by charter text alone. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)
Leak the lobby, lose the floor: Quintero’s exposure made the bribery the story but could not discipline the beneficiaries — publicity substituting for the enforcement powers the convention lacked over its own members. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)
Suspend the rules, redraft by committee: the post-proclamation sequence — rules suspended, the Duavit group’s fresh draft, approval in two months — shows how parliamentary procedure itself became the instrument of capture. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)
For researchers: date the name and the election separately — elected November 10, 1970, convened June 1, 1971 — and anchor the convention’s officers to the documented sequence: Garcia (June 1–14, 1971), Macapagal (from June 14, 1971), Laurel Pro-Tempore; the disbanding date the record prints is the November 29, 1972 adjournment. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1970 ConCon election)

Security and Safety Measures

The arrest list’s reach: the 400-name list martial-law units carried on implementation day included convention members by design — the legislative check on the presidency removed with the same stroke that closed Congress. (Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)
The detained opposition bloc: eleven delegates arrested in the early hours of September 22, 1972, others exiled or in hiding — the documented human cost of presiding over a constituent body under a proclamation whose preamble recited an armed insurrection. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)
The threat as discipline: with nearly a dozen members jailed and its leaders overseas or underground, the record notes “the threat of imprisonment hung over any delegates who might voice opposition” — the operating condition of the convention’s final months, and the security context of every vote it took after September 1972. (Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)
Ratification without the secret ballot: the citizens’-assembly viva voce of January 10–15, 1973, substituted by PD 86-A for the plebiscite the 1935 Constitution required — the procedural safeguard removed at the point of popular consent, the defect Javellana then declined to reach. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, LawPhil — Javellana)
For researchers: distinguish the three drafts’ layers — the pre-proclamation work of the committees, the suspended-rule Duavit draft, and the final text as proclaimed — and keep the arrest lists’ two documented versions (the convention article’s and the martial-law account’s) separate rather than merged into a single roster. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)

Historical Context

The convention belongs to Marcos’s second term. Re-elected in 1969 — the first president to win re-election under the 1935 Constitution’s two-term allowance — Marcos faced a charter that barred him from 1973 onward, and Congress’s call for a convention carried a term-bar of its own that was defeated by a narrow vote. The special election of November 10, 1970 seated 320 nonpartisan delegates on a 68.11-percent turnout; the body convened at the Manila Hotel on June 1, 1971, and its first act of consequence was its first loss: Garcia, sworn in as president that day, died thirteen days later, passing the gavel to Macapagal. The convention’s two years of work — the committees, the Rama ban resolution’s 176 signatures, the Manglapus clause — ran against the mounting disorder of the bombing wave and the 1971 Plaza Miranda suspension of the writ, and against the Money Lobby allegations Quintero raised on May 19, 1972. (Wikipedia — 1970 ConCon election, Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Carlos P. Garcia)

Proclamation No. 1081 ended the convention as an independent body. Signed September 21 and announced September 23, 1972, it carried the convention’s opposition bloc onto the arrest list — eleven delegates taken on September 22, Manglapus abroad, Roco in hiding — and the convention, its venue moved to the new Quezon City Hall, worked on under the threat the record describes. The rules suspended, Duavit’s 166-member group produced the draft the body approved on November 29, 1972 with Macapagal’s reluctant signature; it went to Malacañang on December 1, “marking the end of the Constitutional Convention’s task.” The charter’s afterlife belongs to this wiki’s 1973 Constitution entry: PD 86-A’s substitution of assembly viva voce for the plebiscite, the January 10–15, 1973 voting, Proclamation 1102’s certification, and Javellana‘s political-question ruling — with the convention’s own failure standing as one of Marcos’s stated premises for the proclamation itself. A National Historical Commission marker at the Manila Hotel commemorates the convention’s fiftieth anniversary, and the 1986 Constitutional Commission succeeded it as the democracy’s drafting body. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos, LawPhil — Javellana, Wikipedia — Constitutional Commission of 1986)

Challenges and Controversies

The Money Lobby

The convention’s discrediting is documented at its center: Quintero’s May 19, 1972 sworn statement alleging payments — P11,150 — from a “Money Lobby” to delegates backing provisions favoring the Marcoses, fourteen persons named including twelve delegates and Imelda Marcos, and the standard account’s verdict that the convention was “stained with manifest bribery and corruption.” Contemporaries and later historians read the term-limit fight as the lobby’s object — the removal of the bar on Marcos’s continuation — and many held that continuation was the convention’s true reason for being called. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)

The Captive Drafting

Whether the November 29, 1972 draft was the convention’s work or the proclamation’s is the core interpretive dispute: the pre-proclamation majority’s signatures for the ban, against the post-proclamation suspension of rules, the Duavit group’s fresh text, and the approval taken with the opposition in jail — the record this wiki’s 1973 Constitution entry summarizes as the draft “completed in captivity of circumstance.” (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — 1973 Constitution)

The Delegates’ Arrests

The September 22, 1972 detentions — a list documented in two versions across the standard accounts — raised the question the era kept asking: what is the authority of a constituent body whose dissenting members are imprisoned at the moment of its final drafting? The convention never adjudicated the question; the proclamation simply removed its capacity to. (Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon, Wikipedia — Martial law under Marcos)

The Election Date and the Name

The convention is conventionally dated 1971 — the year it convened and the year in its canonical name — but its delegates were elected on November 10, 1970, and later accounts (and casual usage) misstate the election to 1971 or to the November 8 date of ordinary Third-Republic election years. The record’s own anchors — the 1970 election article, the June 1, 1971 convening — fix the sequence; citations should carry both dates. (Wikipedia — 1970 ConCon election, Wikipedia — 1971 ConCon)