90 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition consider grave abuse of discretion by Marcos. Hence they saw to it that the military power of the President should not be left completely upon the President's discretion. The commissioners discussed the preconditions that would authorize the President to use his power to call out the troops to suppress lawless violence, suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and proclaim martial law. In the recommendation of the Commission's Committee on the Executive, the phrase “imminent danger thereof” should be deleted. This means that the president could exercise his power only in the case of actual invasion, lawless violence and rebellion. Insurrection was also removed as a precondition for the exercise of the power because it is covered by “lawless violence”. Moreover, the Committee proposed that the President must secure the concurrence of the majority of both houses of Congress in the exercise of this power. The experience of 1972, which the commissioners think as an abuse of power should be prevented through the required concurrence of Congress. The commissioners also believed that the exercise of the power should have a limited time frame of sixty days, and its extension beyond sixty days should be approved by the majority of both houses of Congress. In the period of amendments, however, the commission considered the proposal to delete the required concurrence of the majority of the members of Congress because in the case of actual invasion or rebellion, the President might be hindered in effectively dealing with the crisis. This proposal was eventually approved, in spite of a signicant number of commissioners who opposed it. Among those who opposed the proposal was the President of the Commission, former Justice Munoz Palma. She said: I am voting no because this has been a promise that I had personally made during the time of the Marcos regime, the promise to the people that if ever the Opposition comes to power, this will be one of the things that we will do; that is to limit the power of the President in suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and declaring martial law. (Records of the Constitutional Commission, vol. 2 1986: 486) The revised provision of the 1987 Constitution is noteworthy. It has addressed directly the hitherto unchecked military power of the president under the 1935 Constitution, specically, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and declaration of martial law. The Constitution limits the power of the President and protects Congress from being abolished. The Constitution also empowers the Supreme Court to review the factual basis of the proclamation of martial law or the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. The other limitations of this power apply to the observance of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in spite of its suspension (1987 Constitution of the Philippines, Article VII, Section 18). This is a crucial reform that had been undertaken. But this is just the core of what is now referred to as the security sector reform for countries that are transitioning to democracy or is in the process of peace-building. In her paper on security sector reform/security sector governance in the Philippines,