‘When less is more’ – (Part II) Enrile-Belmonte on the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution

The idea that a country’s political constitution could be related to its economic progress is not often in people’s minds. My own journey of awareness was a revelation even to me. I found out that some rules and designs in political constitutions often help to facilitate economic progress.

There are times when less is more. The less said, the more flexible, the better is the result. The more said, the greater the probability of mistakes that lead to unwanted results. Legislation is the place to put details of economic provisions.

“A study of practical importance.” While thinking about how Philippine practice of “nationalism” impacted badly on economic matters, I stumbled on an idea. Why is it that those countries that have progressed immensely – in the long historical past as well as in contemporary times – have had typically simpler political constitutions?

I discussed this conjecture at length with my late wife, Loretta. (She was Dr. Loretta Makasiar Sicat, then political science professor at the University of the Philippines). My wife was a gifted, cheerful and professionally accomplished person. I could always rely on her to give me a good reply on any subject. She was a great chiseler of my ideas. Her way with words is summed up by the title of this piece.

It turned out that there was no easy answer to my query. So, Loretta and I decided to give this matter empirical proof. We studied the political constitutions of different countries. Although economic development was a topic of remote relationship to the contents of these constitutions, it was possible that the content, design, as well as various provisions of these political documents could have a meaning to our query.

“Do the contents and language of constitutions reinforce progress?” Loretta and I embarked on what turned out to be our last enterprise together: to study the design and language style of these political constitutions of the United States.

We made judgments about the length of the documents and the amount of elaborations of constitutional provisions using as model for length, brevity and simplicity of language the constitution. The brief and simple constitution of the United States was used as the standard. It is the longest surviving political constitutions among democracies.

The US constitution was used as the standard of comparison. It was very simply written. As conceived by the framers of the American constitution, it was a general document that spelled the nation’s overriding objectives, the political rights of the governed and the political structure of government. The document did not give any details that legislation would require. The only economic provision written in that constitution was the prohibition against states of the union to impose tariffs on one another so as to promote inter-state freedom of commerce.

We drew up a list of countries at different levels of economic development. We spread the countries across continents. But we made sure that we had a good sample of neighbors in East Asia. Thus we had a sample of developed and developing countries.

I had earlier dissected the Philippine constitutions of recent periods in connection with my study of Philippine economic nationalism. I was particularly appalled (after a close reading of these documents) by the excessive number of economic provisions on economic matters. Many of them went beyond the statement of general objectives. The 1987 Constitution was more verbose than the Constitution of 1935. Yet the early document contained detailed economic provisions. In terms of phrasing and in the use of language, the Philippine constitutions were quite lengthy documents compared to other constitutions.

With respect to the British constitution, there is no single document defining what a constitution is. It is a series concordats between the monarch and the people and of important parliamentary laws that evolved over time.

“Some findings.” We found out that the countries with apparently more contentious economic problems had very extensive, often complex, political constitutions. Our judgment of countries with problems of economic development was based mainly on my awareness of them through my experience as an economist especially during the 1980s and 1990s when I worked with the World Bank.

Going deeper, we further looked at latest political constitutions of the formerly socialist countries, former members of the Soviet Union, some other Eastern European states, and China. The trauma of the fall of the communist doctrines and the economic crisis that followed – one after the other – the collapse of the Soviet Union led to new constitutional documents.

What we found may be a revelation to people who think that political constitutions should predicate a lot of the things that we wish in life for a nation so that these beliefs or objectives need to be written in the constitutional text.

Here are a few of the important findings that we found:

• The length or details contained in constitutional documents have no direct bearing on economic performance of nations. It is leadership that makes the country perform well.

• Most constitutions detail the organization of the government. The briefest among them provide a minimal but specific statements about the form of government, the specific organs of government, the judicial system, and the divisions of government between local and national.

• Most constitutions have grand objectives of nationhood and general statements about national or social welfare, but they stop short of providing details.

• Very few constitutions have detailed statements about the role of the state in economic matters or in the control of resources to be used in production. The Philippine constitution is exceptional in that it has these details.

• Among all the East Asian neighbors – ASEAN members, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. There are no economic provisions stated in their constitutional document. They leave economic issues unsaid, or unspecified. By implication, economic matters are the subject of ordinary law-making.

• The constitutions of formerly communist countries under the influence of the former Soviet Union including that of Russia, those of Eastern European countries and of China are simple political constitutions. They do not cover economic matters. –Gerardo P. Sicat (The Philippine Star)

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