The Never Ending Democratization of the Philippines 111 arrests are reminders of the potency of the military power against civil and political liberties. The institutionalization of the constitutional principle of civilian supremacy over the military continues to be a formidable challenge of the post-EDSA transition to substantive democracy. Recent disclosures in the Senate hearings on the plea bargaining agreement between the Ombudsman and retired Major General Carlos Garcia revealed that the budget item called Provisions for Command Directed Activities is under the control of the chief of staff (Testimony of Retired Lt. Col. George Rabusa, Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Hearing on the Plea Bargain Agreement with Retired Major General Carlos Garcia, January 27, 2011). From 2000 to 2002, this item came from the unused funds for salaries of personnel of the armed forces and UN funds for Philippine peacekeeping units. These funds were “converted” into intelligence fund which is exempt from auditing. This converted fund was used for questionable purposes like the “pasalubong” and “pabaon”, including the unauthorized monthly allowances for the chief of staff and other officials of the armed forces (Ibid). Rabusa said that “pasalubong” is the cash gift for the incoming chief-of-staff, while “pabaon” is the cash gift for the outgoing chief-of-staff. These cash gifts ranged from PHP 10 million to 120 million. The unilateral power of the President to proclaim martial law in the 1935 Constitution has been limited by the 1987 Constitution.Many members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission were evidently conscious of what they 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 considered opinion 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 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