The Duterte administration’s campaign to promote federalism in Cebu continued with the launching of its National Alliance of Movement for Federalism Inc. (NamFed) in the province’s sixth district yesterday.
About 500 residents in the towns of Cordova and Consolacion and in Lapu-Lapu City were sworn in as members of NamFed in Cordova town. NamFed’s launching there was also attended by mayors in Cebu and Bohol province.
The movement was launched last month in Cebu City. Danilo Lim, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) secretary and NamFed president, said they will expand the movement in Mindanao and various parts of the country.
He said he was happy with how Cebuanos were responsive to the call for changing the presidential form of government in the country to a federal form.
Lim said the launching will also be complemented with an information drive on federalism.
“The President formed a committee that will recommend the type of federal system to be adopted by the country and we will support it,” he said.
President Rodrigo Duterte created a Charter change consultative committee composed of 19 members and headed by former chief justice Reynato Puno last December.
The committee was tasked to conduct consultations and review the 1987 Constitution with the end goal of drafting a new Constitution to be reviewed by Congress within six months or by June this year.
Cordova Mayor Mary Therese Sitoy-Cho, whose father is former Cordova mayor and now presidential liaison for legislative affairs Adelino Sitoy, said she and her officials are supporting the government’s federalism campaign.
During last month’s launching in Cebu City, the elder Sitoy defined the administration’s model for federalism in which “sovereignty is constitutionally shared between the central governing authority and constituent political units called states or regions.”
“We don’t know yet since they are still drafting but what we want is a change of form of the government,” Cho said.
She said another NamFed chapter will be launched in Cebu’s 1st district on Feb. 10.