are those who assert that conception refers to the "implantation" of the fertilized ovum in the uterus.143 Plain and Legal Meaning It is a canon in statutory construction that the words of the Constitution should be interpreted in their plain and ordinary meaning. As held in the recent case of Chavez v. Judicial Bar Council:144 One of the primary and basic rules in statutory construction is that where the words of a statute are clear, plain, and free from ambiguity, it must be given its literal meaning and applied without attempted interpretation. It is a well-settled principle of constitutional construction that the language employed in the Constitution must be given their ordinary meaning except where technical terms are employed. As much as possible, the words of the Constitution should be understood in the sense they have in common use. What it says according to the text of the provision to be construed compels acceptance and negates the power of the courts to alter it, based on the postulate that the framers and the people mean what they say. Verba legis non est recedendum - from the words of a statute there should be no departure. The raison d' etre for the rule is essentially two-fold: First, because it is assumed that the words in which constitutional provisions are couched express the objective sought to be attained; and second, because the Constitution is not primarily a lawyer's document but essentially that of the people, in whose consciousness it should ever be present as an important condition for the rule of law to prevail. In conformity with the above principle, the traditional meaning of the word "conception" which, as described and defined by all reliable and reputable sources, means that life begins at fertilization. Webster's Third New International Dictionary describes it as the act of becoming pregnant, formation of a viable zygote; the fertilization that results in a new entity capable of developing into a being like its parents.145 Black's Law Dictionary gives legal meaning to the term "conception" as the fecundation of the female ovum by the male spermatozoon resulting in human life capable of survival and maturation under normal conditions.146 Even in jurisprudence, an unborn child has already a legal personality. In Continental Steel Manufacturing Corporation v. Hon. Accredited Voluntary Arbitrator Allan S. Montano,147 it was written: Life is not synonymous with civil personality. One need not acquire civil personality first before he/she could die. Even a child inside the womb already has life. No less than the Constitution recognizes the life of the unborn from conception, that the State must protect equally with the life of the mother. If the unborn already has life, then the cessation thereof even prior to the child being delivered, qualifies as death. [Emphases in the original]