In one week, the Committee completed the entire draft of the constitution. Previously, it had taken the convention two weeks just to approve the preamble.

The special committee had divided itself into smaller committees, each of which produced a section of the overall constitution. The smaller Many delegates later said that they were cited as authors of proposals that they were diametrically opposed to or had never madecommittees were free to override and revise whatever had been discussed before. They then passed their output to a 17-man ad hoc panel, which stitched together an entire charter in the record time of four days.

Mysterious insertions

Recalling the process, ad hoc panel chair Antonio de Guzman said in a 1984 interview, "We were practically given a large latitude to exercise our own judgment with the understanding that all delegates would have a chance to present their own proposals." But the truth was the ad hoc panel accepted only a few proposals and hustled the sections to the steering council, which approved them on Oct. 30.

The rest of the ConCon saw a copy of the draft charter only on Nov. 22, when they were also told they had only eight days to approve it. Some of the delegates noticed that the transitory provisions that they had earlier approved - and which gave Marcos great powers - had mysteriously expanded from six to 15 sections. Because the convention barely had time to deliberate the entire proposed constitution, many of the provisions "were not subjected to the slightest debate," said delegate Suarez.

Many delegates later said that they were cited as authors of proposals that they were diametrically opposed to or had never made.

The prayer with which delegate Pacifico Ortiz, a Jesuit priest, opened the Nov. 25 deliberations was telling: "Dear Lord, at this juncture of our task, at this point of no return - too late to buck the headwinds towards the independence that we have lost, too soon to discern the deluge in the tailwinds that, against our choice, propel us towards an unknown undesired port - we do not know what to pray for, we simply do not know."

Despite this concern, 273 out of 320 delegates voted to approve the Marcos constitution four days later. Perhaps the reason lay in a talk Marcos had with a few convention members in Malacañang. There, he promised he would convene the interim national assembly, where all of those who voted to support his constitution would become members. "Trust me," Marcos reportedly assured them.

Records show that Macapagal did not vote. He would say in 1984 that he "merely certified to its approval by the majority" because he was "strongly against the transitory provisions." But no records from 1972 show him voicing his opposition. There is, however, a photo of him and Marcos smiling together as he handed the president a signed copy of the charter produced by the ConCon.

Delegate Antonio Tupaz would later say that Macapagal was one of the "two men (who) were silently fashioning the intricate details of suspending the rules" at the ConCon. The other man was Gilberto Duavit. In 1984, Macapagal himself identified Duavit as one of Marcos's leaders inside the convention.

Last year, Duavit was appointed by Macapagal's daughter, President Arroyo, to her 55-member ConCom.

Committees at work

Just like the ConCon, Arroyo's Consultative Commission had begun with few committees. ConCom member Vicente Paterno says that the body at first had only three committees to tackle form of government, federalism and the charter's economic provisions. He joined the first two as member and asked to co-chair the third.

"Gradually, in order to satisfy the desire of people to be chairs and officers - a very Filipino trait I'm sorry to say - other subcommittees were formed," he says. This included a special committee that Paterno says was "to put together all the transitory provisions." This same committee "told the plenary commission" of the provisions giving President Arroyo extraordinary powers "only on the day before the commission was dissolved," he says.

ConCom chairman Jose Abueva, who had acted as secretary in Marcos's ConCon, says, "We did not know (the new amendments) until we saw it in the last day…but if you are a member of the committee you know what was happening."

He says, though, that the amendments "evolved out of the debates and compromises."

"But there were some givens," says Abueva. "One given is that the President (Arroyo) was elected to a six-year term ending 2010."

Yet he also says that some of the insertions in ConCom's draft constitution were either "flukes" or "nalusutan (sneaked in)." Among the flukes was a proposal to let Arroyo appoint 30 new members to the interim Parliament.

"That was proposed I think by (Commissioner) Gerry Espina," says Abueva. "In the rush of events that was approved along with the whole proposal."

Abueva says an insertion that effectively restricts freedom of speech, press and assembly was "nalusutan." He says he learned about the provision only after civil-rights advocates complained about it.

Intended changes?

But other changes could only have been intended, such as a drastic revision of the current preamble, the opening sentence in the constitution that states the nation's aspirations for its people.

The preamble of the Arroyo administration's proposed constitution no longer has these phrases and words, which are contained in that of the 1987 charter: "rule of law," "to build a just and humane society," "a regime of truth," "freedom," and "love."

In a recent forum, University of the Philippines law professor Ibarra Gutierrez III wondered about their deletion. It was, however, not a matter of the ConCom taking them out. What Arroyo's Consultative Commissioners actually did was to bodily lift the preamble of the 1973 Marcos Constitution. The only thing they did not retain was the phrase "Divine Providence" - they changed that to "Almighty God."

On to Part 2: How Arroyo Copied from the Marcos Book

In 1984, when the Batasang Pambansa was debating Marcos's succession, Raissa Espinosa-Robles wrote a 14-part series on the Marcos constitution for the now-defunct Business Day. She interviewed key players and obtained official records of the Con Con and delegates' speeches. Diosdado Macapagal declined an interview, but typed out answers to questions from the author