‘Imperial Manila’ is old hat

AFEW weeks ago, I bumped into Tuburan Mayor Aljun Diamante at the lobby of an uptown hotel. Diamante, who is the president of the league of municipalities in Cebu, joined the mass oath-taking of PDP-Laban recruits last year and is now the chairman of the federal movement in the province.

“We have to shift to federalism to free us from our bondage to Imperial Manila,” Aljun said. The line was not new but he said it with such conviction, you get the feeling that he actually believed that LGUs are being starved by the central government and that only charter change can save us from slow but certain extinction.

It was former governor Lito Osmeña, if I recall correctly, who popularized the name Imperial Manila in derision of the national government’s constant interference in local governance.

He claimed that the intrusion has stunted the growth of the regions outside of the capital. And yet it was during Lito’s term that Ceboom was born, a reference to that period of economic growth that became the envy of the other parts of the country. And he did it with little, if at all, help from the national government, proving that there is no such thing as a handicapped LGU if its leaders know how to wisely manage their resources.

Our infatuation with federalism stems from the belief that the grass on the other side of the

shaped by the rewards and punishments that they encounter. People generally do things that will most likely lead them to more rewards or positive results, and avoid the things that would result to punishment or negative results.

Tagging, identifying and classifying friends (and unfriends) on Facebook can be explained by analyzing the choosing behavior of Facebook users. There are some people who have thousands of friends of Facebook, but only a handful are known to them personally. There are also some who seem to have a restricted number of friends on Facebook, and justifying their choice of keeping only a few friends restricted to those whom they know personally, in reality and/or virtually. Again, emphasizing each one’s motivation towards achieving a positive outcome, and avoiding a negative effect.

And it is that choosing behavior avoiding negative effects that leads a Facebook user to create unfriendships or to unfriend. This may actually mean that when one chooses to unfriend someone of Facebook, it may actually be for the reason of saving their friendship in real life, because keeping them as Facebook friends further may

fence is greener. But, as former senator Edgardo Angara pointed out, according to a story in the Inquirer yesterday, it is not necessarily so. The shift to federalism, he warned, could lead to an “unintended and disastrous consequence - the breakup of the Philippine Republic.”

Angara explained that in federalism, “you try to unify a nation by having different tribal and ethnic groups come together.” That is difficult to achieve, he said, given our lack of experience in bringing together the Tagalog, Bisaya, Waray, Ilocano, Moro and other people and convincing them to come as one.

He said he feared that we might just end up with ethnic groups who have a very strong sense of identity breaking away from the national government and declaring their independence. SSCebu

result to their relationship to sour further. Keeping a virtual friendship, seeing each others’ posts that you do not agree with day in and day out, may cause unnecessary stress, anger and frustration on both their parts.

The bottomline is, when one is rational and takes into consideration all that was mentioned above, the choice made can actually prove to be one that is the best. The choice of creating unfriendships can actually be the best option at that point in time, resulting to the least opportunity cost, and yielding the highest utility or satisfaction.

The good thing with Facebook and other social media is that there is always an option to be friends again with those that was unfriended in the past, by just clicking on a single button, “Add Friend”.

Therefore, unfriendship is not synonymous to enmity, and never will it be. Unfriends are not and never will be the same as enemies. Enmity just creates division, hurt, pride and brokenness, while in unfrienships, there is reinforcement, redirection, redemption and restoration. I guess that is the most real thing in that virtual society.