Needed: Campaign for, against federalism

“There hardly has been any all-out information drive.”

A new charter adopting the federal system of government, has been drafted by the Duterte-appointed Consultative Commission (ConCom), which is to be shortly submitted to the President for his review and revisions, should there be any.

This will then be sent to Congress, presumably with the two chambers being sent the same draft charter copies for their study and for sure, revisions mostly from the House of Representatives, which has a bigger membership compared to the Senate, which can only count on 24 senators.

The House is expected to rewrite the ConCom draft while transforming itself into a constituent assembly (con-ass) while the Senate is expected to block the con-ass as it will insist on separate voting. Should majority of senators adopt the congressional ConCom’s move for a con-ass, the question whether the Constitution allows separate voting of two chambers, or whether the House can go at it alone, will surely erupt. This will then be challenged before the Supreme Court which may take time.

But all the House can really do is to either revise or throw out the ConCom draft charter and come up with is own version of the federal system it envisioned.

Whatever decision the House leadership makes, what is clear is that the draft federal charter must be presented to the Filipino electorate for approval or rejection through a plebiscite. Will the Senate agree to hold a plebiscite if the House has not agreed to the chambers’ separate voting?

At this time, however, majority of the Filipino electorate are unaware of the 1986 Constitution being replaced by a federal system and, worse, they may not know just what the federal system entails. This is what the recent surveys have found.

The chair of the ConCom, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno had a different version, as he claimed the people had a positive response to recommendations contained in the draft Federal Constitution.

“We have been submitting these various recommendations to the people through the media. And so far, the result, the reaction is positive on the part of the public,” Puno said.

The media are hardly the “people” that can be relied on for the electorate’s feedback, positive or negative. It is also probably fairly accurate to state that media as a whole have hardly focused on this issue on the change to federal system. What media have obtained by way of news on the federal shift would be press releases coming from the ConCom which hardly offer much by way of information.

Also, there hardly has been any all-out information drive — whether for or against the shift to federalism, which is important for the electorate to make an intelligent decision if and when voters are faced with a plebiscite.

Personally, I take the view that Filipinos are not ready for a shift to federalism, perhaps more because even our elected leaders in different regions are not that trained and ready to take on major state roles which may screw up an independent 18 states operating under a federal system.

Not even the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that insists on a Bangsamoro government under a parliamentary system is ready to take on an efficient and virtually independent Moro government.

Then too, there is still that possibility that given a few years more in the leadership position in the Bangsamoro government, secession will be the government’s headache. By that time, the MILF and its troops will have, compliments of the Muslim governments the world over, attack helicopters and other military equipment, even patrol boats, along with its troops, fighting it out with the federal government police and military troops for independence.

Should such a scenario become a reality, it won’t be long before other “states” will be expected to seek independence.

The other problems are areas that would be turned into “states” that are controlled by the Communist rebels, and areas where the government provincial or municipal, go along with the rebels and allow them to extort their claimed “revolutionary tax.”

A federal shift to succeed in this country is to do it slowly. It never should be a sudden shift in changing government systems.

At the same time, the opposition should come up with an information drive for the people to learn the advantages and disadvantages in having a federal system. That is, instead of coming out with claims of a federal shift leading to a Duterte dictatorship, which is a baseless argument.

And that’s the trouble with the political opposition, especially the above ground communists who are in the House as partylisters. All they want is to oust Duterte for them to take power again with the other.