Deconstructing the Federalism issue

For the past decades Federalism has been campaigned as the solution to the overweening power of “imperial” Manila while the regions, especially the Visayas and Mindanao, suffer from lack of attention. It is no wonder that the poorest regions are in the east and south — Bicol, Samar/Leyte and Mindanao.

We can blame the patronage politics of the trapos (traditional politicians), the comprador-landlords who control the vast agricultural lands and who turned Mindanao into their own Land of Promise. They also made outcasts of the original people of Mindanao — the Lumads, the Moros and Bisaya settler peasants.

For the whole Filipino people, inequality and uneven development is essentially a question of self-determination.

Every Filipino, family, community, barangay and town, province and region, along with the whole country, enjoys the right to self-determination. This right belongs to every individual. More importantly, it is a collective right by which the individual benefits singly and collectively.

The people can decide when they can set their preferred dates for their fiestas or for their carnivals. They can act on the needs of the community and individual. All the residents can agree on the use of their water resources and natural resources or public lands.

The State has the duty to provide, promote and protect that right for people-centered development that is truly according to their goals and aspirations. The question, however, is the division of functions and responsibilities — and power — for the local, regional and national governments.

“Imperial” Manila benefits from tax revenues collected from investors and multinational operations but resources even for health and education services for the people remain wanting. It is no wonder that Mindanaoans like Ruben Canoy have been campaigning for self-determination, even pushing independence from the Philippine Republic. More radical Moros like the Moro National Liberation Front and Moro Islamic Liberation Front had taken up arms for secession.

But while the right to self-determination lies at the base of the problem especially for our aggrieved citizens and our national minorities, Federalism is not the silver bullet solution to the pro-people development are seeking.

Federalism is only about the form of government — the workings of governance. It does not follow that the right to self-determination can only be realized in the form of governance that is Federalism.

Large countries like the United States of America, Russia and Republic of India have federal governments, but a small country like Switzerland also has a federal system of government based in cantons.

On the other hand, China is also a large and powerful country whose form of government is not federal but central. So is Japan and many other countries. Without being federal in nature, these governments also have sub-national and local government systems besides autonomous self-governing regions and territories where the self-determination of national minorities is (by policy and hopefully) further assured.

Many issues and concerns of local authorities from the barangay up to the provincial levels are covered by the Local Government Code. Our country compares very favorably with most developing countries with a better than average and relatively progressive law leading some to opine that further amendments to the Constitution are not necessary. To improve on policy and practice, a new law can be enacted by Congress instead of creating a new constitution to ensure equitable sharing of revenues earned from private exploitation of natural resources between the national government and local authorities concerned.

Which is the issue — Federalism vs central or parliamentary vs presidential?

Two issues in change in the form of government — central to federal and from presidential to parliamentary is actually conflated in the ConCom proposal. But the two issues require different debates for the people to comprehend these supposedly complex.

We don’t need jingles but intelligent debate since these proposals entail major shifts in the workings of the government.

Will the change in the form of government mean that we will end the control of landlords and compradors in all branches of government?

Will the change in Federalism just decentralize patronage and foreign control, or will it strengthen the drug lords in the local government and the police?

Will a parliamentary system weaken or just systematize corruption already endemic to Philippine bureaucracy?

Indeed, we need change but not so much in the form of government but in our politicians who are modern-day pashas and have turned the government and elections into business propositions.

Federalism is a political catch-all slogan used by the political establishment to foist their Charter change on our hapless country.