These past few days I’ve been watching the CNN coverage of the US presidential elections especially the debates among the Republican and Democratic parties. The debates are enlightening in that the questions zeroed in on issues affecting the country.
At the Republican front it seems everybody is quite surprised by the performance of American billionaire Donald Trump who is leading comfortably against the rest of the Republican candidates.
In the Iowa primary Trump did not participate and it cost him with rival Ted Cruz taking Iowa.
Over at the Democrat side, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders were statistically tied in the Iowa primary.
Trump’s performance is interesting because he raised some controversial issues such as the continuing distrust on Muslims and immigration. Trump proposed to put up a concrete fence on the border to stop illegal migration of Mexicans to the US.
Trump has been using foul language in delivering his message and despite that, the American people are still supporting him. The presidential debate gave the American people the chance to look closely on the issues and the stand of the presidential candidates.
The debate is important in American elections. Just like any Filipino, I envy how the Americans use their freedom to help them elect its president.
Here in the Philippines I know there are some organizations that are organizing presidential debates even if some don’t consider it quite important.
That’s because there are still some sectors in our community that tolerate, encourage and engage in vote-buying thus rendering debates on issues in our country insignificant.
But nevertheless I am hoping that we can organize one decent debate complete with post-debate analysis involving our major TV stations.
Debates are important because it would help the electorate know the candidates better.
Ordinary people want to know how the candidates could deliver on their promise of a better future for the country on such fronts as the economy, peace and order, graft and corruption, health services and others.
I am hoping that Vice President Jejomar Binay, Secretary Mar Roxas, Sen. Grace Poe, Mayor Rody Duterte and Sen. Miriam Santiago will exchange ideas on the same platform in a friendly debate. We would like to hear the candidates’ stand on illegal drugs, graft and corruption, health, peace and order, how to address the worsening traffic in some cities, a change to a federal system of government, their stand to amend the Constitution and other social issues.
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I am very much interested in the position of the candidates on the issue of shifting our system of government to a federal system because I believe that the time is perfect to do so in order to address some major problems in our country like the Muslims’ quest for independence.
What if instead of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), we establish a federal system of government in Mindanao?
One thing good about the federal system is that the powers of government will be devolved to the local government units.
This is long overdue because the local government unit is closer to the people and knows pretty well how to solve them.
The federal system of government will eliminate the highly centralized Imperial Manila hierarchy.
Cebu contributes substantially to Manila but what do we get from Imperial Manila? A drop in the bucket especially if the mayor is not allied with the national administration.
Under the federal system, the 60-40 sharing scheme will be moved in favor of the LGU. This should be the case because the LGU needs to retain most of its funds to directly address the needs of their constituents.
The federal system empowers the LGUs in a way that is not evident under the present presidential system. But trust me that Imperial Manila doesn’t want to lose that power of the purse.
I’m not losing hope that the federal system will be realized and neither should those who support it because I now see more people growing politically mature enough to be receptive to it.
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