Federalism (Part 1)

By Mini Zamora-Arceo
Column Title: Let's Talk ABout it
Punto, May 2, 2008

Former House Speaker Jose De Venecia has long been making cries on the proposed Charter Change with the idea of changing our Congress into a unicameral body. His battlecry was however muffled by oppositions from left to right, including one from the Senate.

But the former Speaker might be relieved by now after Senate Majority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. opened anew talks on Cha-cha. With Pimentel’s convincing prowess, 16 Senators are now supporting proposed Resolution No. 10 seeking the amendment of the Constitution to adopt a federal form of government.

Pimentel said 16 is more than the three-fourths vote (13) needed to approve a resolution for the holding of a Constituent Assembly (Con Ass) to amend the 1986 Constitution. The senator is pushing for a federal form of government with 11 autonomous federal states as centers of finance and development, decentralizing Manila’s economic power. The President and Vice President positions would be retained and elected at large among all 11 federal states. Pimentel also proposes that the federal states would elect six senators each while overseas Filipino workers would be allowed to elect nine.

The proposed 11 federal states are the State of Northern Luzon, State of Central Luzon, State of Southern Tagalog, State of Bicol, State of Minporom (Mindoro, Palawan and Romblon), State of Eastern Visayas, State of Central Visayas, State of Western Visayas, State of Northern Mindanao, State of Southern Mindanao and the State of BangsaMoro.
Metro Manila will remain intact and would be named as the Federal Administrative Region.

Should this resolution be passed in time, we will see drastic changes in our political and socio-economic systems. Others may not agree to further divide this small country into smaller governments but we must admit that we have diverse and distinctive sub-cultures that could never be reconciled. It is not a secret that when Filipinos settle abroad, they bond themselves based on their ethnicity or native language. This is why you have the association of Visayans, Bicolanos, Ilocanos, Kapampangans, Cebuanos, etc. in the United States. And worse, among these groups, you would even find smaller clusters. Funny but true.

Now, going back to the proposed federal form of government, I see several good points that would eventually propel this country into economic stability. First, the federal states will have no choice but to work on their own and develop strategies how to feed their own people, generate jobs and livelihood for them, and how to become more competitive in terms of finance and investments. The law of economics state that competition is good. It brings out the best among people. It makes products more affordable. It provides a wider choice for clients and in this case, our country will open more choices to foreign investors.

Also, stronger states will provide a model to their neighbors while the poorer states, knowing that they need to become self-reliant, will engineer ways how to improve their performance. At the end, the best minds will bring home the bacon.

Sen. Ping Lacson has yet to support Pimentel’s resolution because his questions have yet to be answered in a formal debate during the plenary session. Lacson is asking who will shoulder the P3.7 trillion debt of the national government and more, he wants to know what would be the plan for the poorer states.

Lacson’s concerns are valid but we could definitely find ways how to address these questions in the future. For now it is important for every Filipino to look where Pimentel is envisioning this country. Although we cannot reject the idea that the senators are pushing for federalism to save their own skins knowing that with a presidential-unicameral form of government as De Venecia earlier proposed, the Senate will be dissolved and they will have equal powers with the House members under a unicameral body.

But with the federal-unicameral set-up, the senators will have the chance to run as heads of the 11 federal states or be elected as State senators if they prefer.

However, both the public and private sector leaders of our country should look at this resolution as an opportunity to truly bring progress and development to our people. It is not bad to be “regionalistic” when the times call for it. The Visayans have already done it. Take Cebu’s example. They promote Cebu as an island in the Pacific, not in the Philippines.

So why not Central Luzon take Cebu’s lead? We have all the opportunities to overtake Metro Manila in the next 10 years. We have the mega-infrastructures such as the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx), the most sophisticated and longest expressway in the country. We have the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA), the next premier airport of the Philippines, while there are other airports in Subic, Baler, and Palayan. Central Luzon also has seaports in Dingalan, Casiguran, Bataan, Masinloc and Subic. And we are blessed for we have two of the largest ecozones in the country, Clark Special Economic Zone and Subic Bay Freeport Zone with other industrial areas like Luisita, Hermosa, Masinloc, and Mabalacat. It is just up to us how we could maximize the potentials of our region to become the next economic tiger in Southeast Asia. (30)