Article III of the Philippine Constitution is the Bill of Rights. It establishes the relationship of the individual to the State and defines the rights of the individual by limiting the lawful powers of the State. It is one of the most important political achievements of the Filipinos.

The concept of a Bill of Rights, as such, is essentially an occidental prod-uct. For a number of centuries in British, French, and American political thought, there has grown the conviction that the rights of the individual must be preserved and safeguarded, not through the authority of an individual, not through membership in a particular group or party, not through reliance upon force of arms, but rather through the accepted processes of declared constitutional law.

THIS special issue on the Philippines has been prepared with the collaboration of the East Indies Institute of America, 15 West 77th Street, New York City, which enlisted the cooperation of its membership to write articles on the Philippines, as indicated in the introduction to the issue.