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Article 13 Philippine Constitution 1987: Social Justice and Human Rights

Preamble ARTICLE I National Territory ARTICLE II Declaration of Principles and State Policies ARTICLE III Bill of Rights ARTICLE IV Citizenship ARTICLE V Suffrage ARTICLE VI Legislative Department ARTICLE VII Executive Department ARTICLE VIII Judicial Department ARTICLE IX Constitutional Commissions ARTICLE X Local Government ARTICLE XI Accountability of Public Officers ARTICLE XII National Economy and Patrimony ARTICLE XIII Social Justice and Human Rights ARTICLE XIV Education, Science and Technology, Arts, Culture and Sports ARTICLE XV The Family ARTICLE XVI General Provisions ARTICLE XVII Amendments or Revisions ARTICLE XVIII Transitory Provisions

Article 13 Philippine Constitution 1987

Table of Contents

Article 13 of the Philippine Constitution 1987 is about Social Justice and Human Rights, Labor, Agrarian and Natural Resources Reform, Urban Land Reform and Housing, Health, Women, Role and Rights of People’s Organizations, and Human Rights. It has 19 sections.

Article 13 Section 1 Philippine Constitution

The Congress shall give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to human dignity, reduce social, economic, and political inequalities, and remove cultural inequities by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the common good.

To this end, the State shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, and disposition of property and its increments.

Article 13 Section 2 Philippine Constitution

The promotion of social justice shall include the commitment to create economic opportunities based on freedom of initiative and self-reliance.

Labor

Article 13 Section 3 Philippine Constitution

The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.

It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.

The State shall promote the principle of shared responsibility between workers and employers and the preferential use of voluntary modes in settling disputes, including conciliation, and shall enforce their mutual compliance therewith to foster industrial peace.

The State shall regulate the relations between workers and employers, recognizing the right of labor to its just share in the fruits of production and the right of enterprises to reasonable returns on investments, and to expansion and growth.

Agrarian and Natural Resources Reform

Article 13 Section 4 Philippine Constitution

The State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular farmworkers, who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or, in the case of other farmworkers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof. To this end, the State shall encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands, subject to such priorities and reasonable retention limits as the Congress may prescribe, taking into account ecological, developmental, or equity considerations, and subject to the payment of just compensation. In determining retention limits, the State shall respect the right of small landowners. The State shall further provide incentives for voluntary land-sharing.

Article 13 Section 5 Philippine Constitution

The State shall recognize the right of farmers, farmworkers, and landowners, as well as cooperatives, and other independent farmers’ organizations to participate in the planning, organization, and management of the program, and shall provide support to agriculture through appropriate technology and research, and adequate financial, production, marketing, and other support services.

Article 13 Section 6 Philippine Constitution

The State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform or stewardship, whenever applicable in accordance with law, in the disposition or utilization of other natural resources, including lands of the public domain under lease or concession suitable to agriculture, subject to prior rights, homestead rights of small settlers, and the rights of indigenous communities to their ancestral lands.

The State may resettle landless farmers and farmworkers in its own agricultural estates which shall be distributed to them in the manner provided by law.

Article 13 Section 7 Philippine Constitution

The State shall protect the rights of subsistence fishermen, especially of local communities, to the preferential use of local marine and fishing resources, both inland and offshore. It shall provide support to such fishermen through appropriate technology and research, adequate financial, production, and marketing assistance, and other services. The State shall also protect, develop, and conserve such resources. The protection shall extend to offshore fishing grounds of subsistence fishermen against foreign intrusion. Fishworkers shall receive a just share from their labor in the utilization of marine and fishing resources.

Article 13 Section 8 Philippine Constitution

The State shall provide incentives to landowners to invest the proceeds of the agrarian reform program to promote industrialization, employment creation, and privatization of public sector enterprises. Financial instruments used as payment for their lands shall be honored as equity in enterprises of their choice.

Urban Land Reform and Housing

Article 13 Section 9 Philippine Constitution

The State shall, by law, and for the common good, undertake, in cooperation with the public sector, a continuing program of urban land reform and housing which will make available at affordable cost decent housing and basic services to underprivileged and homeless citizens in urban centers and resettlements areas. It shall also promote adequate employment opportunities to such citizens. In the implementation of such program the State shall respect the rights of small property owners.

Article 13 Section 10 Philippine Constitution

Urban or rural poor dwellers shall not be evicted nor their dwellings demolished, except in accordance with law and in a just and humane manner.

No resettlement of urban or rural dwellers shall be undertaken without adequate consultation with them and the communities where they are to be relocated.

Health

Article 13 Section 11 Philippine Constitution

The State shall adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach to health development which shall endeavor to make essential goods, health and other social services available to all the people at affordable cost. There shall be priority for the needs of the underprivileged sick, elderly, disabled, women, and children. The State shall endeavor to provide free medical care to paupers.

Article 13 Section 12 Philippine Constitution

The State shall establish and maintain an effective food and drug regulatory system and undertake appropriate health manpower development and research, responsive to the country’s health needs and problems.

Article 13 Section 13 Philippine Constitution

The State shall establish a special agency for disabled persons for rehabilitation, self-development and self-reliance, and their integration into the mainstream of society.

Women

Article 13 Section 14 Philippine Constitution

The State shall protect working women by providing safe and healthful working conditions, taking into account their maternal functions, and such facilities and opportunities that will enhance their welfare and enable them to realize their full potential in the service of the nation.

Role and Rights of People’s Organizations

Article 13 Section 15 Philippine Constitution

The State shall respect the role of independent people’s organizations to enable the people to pursue and protect, within the democratic framework, their legitimate and collective interests and aspirations through peaceful and lawful means.

People’s organizations are bona fide associations of citizens with demonstrated capacity to promote the public interest and with identifiable leadership, membership, and structure.

Article 13 Section 16 Philippine Constitution

The right of the people and their organizations to effective and reasonable participation at all levels of social, political, and economic decision-making shall not be abridged. The State shall, by law, facilitate the establishment of adequate consultation mechanisms.

Human Rights

Article 13 Section 17 Philippine Constitution

(1) There is hereby created an independent office called the Commission on Human Rights.

(2) The Commission shall be composed of a Chairman and four Members who must be natural-born citizens of the Philippines and a majority of whom shall be members of the Bar. The term of office and other qualifications and disabilities of the Members of the Commission shall be provided by law.

(3) Until this Commission is constituted, the existing Presidential Committee on Human Rights shall continue to exercise its present functions and powers.

(4) The approved annual appropriations of the Commission shall be automatically and regularly released.

Article 13 Section 18 Philippine Constitution

The Commission on Human Rights shall have the following powers and functions:

(1) Investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights;

(2) Adopt its operational guidelines and rules of procedure, and cite for contempt for violations thereof in accordance with the Rules of Court;

(3) Provide appropriate legal measures for the protection of human rights of all persons within the Philippines, as well as Filipinos residing abroad, and provide for preventive measures and legal aid services to the underprivileged whose human rights have been violated or need protection;

(4) Exercise visitorial powers over jails, prisons, or detention facilities;

(5) Establish a continuing program of research, education, and information to enhance respect for the primacy of human rights;

(6) Recommend to the Congress effective measures to promote human rights and to provide for compensation to victims of violations of human rights, or their families;

(7) Monitor the Philippine Government’s compliance with international treaty obligations on human rights;

(8) Grant immunity from prosecution to any person whose testimony or whose possession of documents or other evidence is necessary or convenient to determine the truth in any investigation conducted by it or under its authority;

(9) Request the assistance of any department, bureau, office, or agency in the performance of its functions;

(10) Appoint its officers and employees in accordance with law; and

(11) Perform such other duties and functions as may be provided by law.

Article 13 Section 19 Philippine Constitution

The Congress may provide for other cases of violations of human rights that should fall within the authority of the Commission, taking into account its recommendations.

See also: Section 34 Nigerian Constitution