"Many talk of liberty without understanding it; many believe that if they have liberty they have complete freedom to do the bad and good alike. Liberty is freedom to do right and never wrong; it is ever guided by reason and the upright and honorable conscience of the individual. The robber is not free, but is the slave of his own passions, and when we put him in prison we punish him precisely because he is unwilling to use true freedom. Liberty does not mean that we shall obey nobody, but commends us to obey those whom Iwe have put in power and acknowledged as the most fit to guide us, since in this way we obey our own reason.'

209. Separation of Powers. It is an accepted principle of English and American law that the three powers of government, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, shall \ be exercised by three separate bodies, and that no one of them shall try to do the work of the others. The legislature is to make the law; the executive to execute the law; and the judiciary to interpret the law. Separation of powers is one of the great safeguards of free government.

This principle has sometimes been interpreted to mean that no one person should exercise more than one kind of function. In the American Government, for instance, the Constitution expressly provides that no member of the Congress may hold any other Federal office. In England, however, while the province of one department cannot be invaded by another department, some members of the legislature are also entrusted with the execution of the law. This is done in order that there may be harmonious relations between the two departments. This is why the most powerful official of England, the Prime Minister, is also a member of Parliament; but he exercises the two functions in separate capacities. In other words, even in the English system, the

1

1 Mabini, The Political Trinity, published on September 20, 1899.

legislative department will not be allowed to do the work of the executive department.

The Philippine Government has applied, in a limited sense, the practice of England; or at least we have had one member of the Legislature who was at the same time secretary of an executive department. But this does not mean that the separation of powers does not exist in the Philippines. Even at the time when the members of the Philippine Commission performed both executive and legislative functions, it was held by the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands that there existed as clear a separation of powers here as in the United States. The executive in the performance of purely executive functions cannot be dictated to by the legislature or the judiciary. Thus, the Supreme Court has refused to intervene in matters in which the wisdom of the decision of the chief executive was questioned. The Supreme Court and the Philippine Legislature, on the other hand, are empowered to regulate their own proceedings independent of the executive, and independent of each other.

The principle is, however, impossible of realization if it should be made to mean that each department should do only the work which corresponds to its nature. In other words, we cannot expect the executive to do purely executive work; the legislature, legislative work; and the judiciary, judicial work. It is necessary to give each department discretion in the carrying out of its activities; for instance, the executive departments are empowered to make regulations which are in the nature of minor laws for the carrying out of the laws passed by the Legislature.

210. The Rule of the Majority. Another unwritten law of popular government is faith in the rule of the majority. This principle is of relatively recent development, the old idea being that only unanimity of opinion should rule a

political body. But there is seldom, if ever, a unanimous opinion on public matters, hence that principle will not do in a modern government. For this reason democracy has provided that the wishes of the majority should prevail.

Many laws carry out this principle. It is the basis of most elections. In fact, in our election laws plurality of votes is sufficient to elect a candidate. The majority of votes in the Legislature is sufficient to pass a law. Likewise resolutions in the provincial board and in the municipal councils require a majority vote for passage.

. This, however, does not mean that the minority has no rights and should in every case be subject to the dictates of the majority. In the first place, the minority has the right to be heard. The minority members of a deliberative body, whether it be a legislature, a provincial board, or a municipal council, have the right to express their views and to have them recorded in the minutes. The majority is not always right; hence many laws also provide for checks, either temporary or permanent, on the wishes of the majority. Thus, while a majority of an American State legislature can pass a bill, that bill can be vetoed by the Governor, and can be passed over his veto only upon a two-thirds vote of the legislature.

When the law provides that the majority opinion on a certain subject shall prevail, it is the duty of the minority to submit to the wishes of the majority. A rather distressing example in the Philippines is the keen dislike of the defeated candidate in electoral contests to submit gracefully to the mandate of the people and thereafter earnestly to coöperate with the victor.

211. Government through Suffrage. - The Philippine Bill and the Philippine Autonomy Act granted to the Filipino people the high prerogative of suffrage. To carry out this

purpose the Election Law was carefully drafted and enacted by the Philippine Commission and was then revised by the Philippine Legislature.

Of the right of suffrage, Mr. Justice Johnson has said: "The people of the Philippine Islands have been granted the right to select, by secret ballot, the men who shall make laws for them. They have been given a right to participate directly in the form of government under which they live. Such a right is among the most important and sacred of the rights of the people in self-government, and one which must be most vigilantly guarded if a people desires to maintain for themselves and their posterity a republican form of government in which the individual may, in accordance with law, have a voice in the form of his government. If republics are to survive and if the people are to continue to exercise the right to govern themselves and to participate directly in the affairs of their government by selecting their representatives by secret ballot, then the maxims of such a government must be left to the watchful care and reverential guardianship of the people. Eternal vigilance is the price paid by a free people for a continuance of their right to participate directly in the affairs of their government. Designing, ambitious, corrupt, and unscrupulous politicians, if the people are off their guard, will ingeniously and persistently encroach upon the rights of an unwary people, and will, finally, undermine the very foundations of self-government and the rights of the people. It behooves the people under a free government to prosecute to the limit, without stint or favor, every person who attempts, in the slightest degree, to interfere with, or who attempts to defeat, their direct participation, by secret ballot, under the forms prescribed by law, in the affairs of their government. If nefarious practices of officials of the government . . . are to be continued or permitted