Push to federalism

Just before 2016 ended, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez rang anew the Duterte administration’s quest to federalize the national government, but he stopped short of outlining the whole picture and instead appealed for public support on the initiative.

“Let us take the first of the many giant steps we as one nation must undertake to effect a paradigm shift by changing our form of government from presidential to federal. Let’s all open our eyes that it is only through federalism that we can break the barriers of a fatally flawed Manila-centrist government to one that grants political and economic autonomy to all of our country’s regions,” he said.

To those outside of imperial Manila, the statement is quite opportune, and coming as it is from one of three top Mindanaoan officials in government, it adds a bit of urgency though the administration’s critics would raise their eyebrows and wish to put the brakes first on this federalism push.

So far, the campaign has been mostly confined to town hall meetings and symposia; but we wish that one of the chief proponents of federalism, former senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., would take a more high-profile involvement since he is perhaps the best person to elaborate on it owing to his extensive decades-long experience in governance.

It had been argued before that rather than overhauling the present US-styled presidential form of government, it’s best to simply grant a bigger budget share to all local governments in order to empower them to chart their own political and economic destinies interdependent from the national government.

But as had been pointed out before, some local governments in the country, especially those in Muslim Mindanao, simply couldn’t afford to be left autonomous even if they retained their revenue 100 percent.

Then again, those LGUs that were given a bigger budget share had other things in mind for using those funds. Yet another local government, Maguindanao, had leaders like the Ampatuans who used the funds to set up their own private army and institute a dynasty.

In setting up federalism in the country, maybe President Duterte and other proponents can use other countries that had continuing success as federal republics to illustrate to Filipinos about its viability.

The US for one, despite the enmity of Duterte and the communists for it, has a federal government that continues to be in existence and remains strong despite the latest political challenges from its continuing evolution, the latest from its incoming president Donald Trump.

With Congress returning to session sometime this year, its members are perhaps in a better position other than President Duterte to explain to their constituents what is beneficial to a midterm change of government from presidential to federal.