A federalism problem

Breaking up the country into smaller states under a federal setup is like the plan to redistrict Cebu. It’s a complicated endeavor. Presidential Legislative Liaison Secretary Adelino Sitoy recently presented his suggestion on how to break up Central Visayas into smaller states. Questions are starting to fly.

The Consultative Committee (ConCom) that President Rodrigo Duterte formed to craft a new charter has come up with a draft federal constitution. It has proposed 18 states, called federated regions, that is obviously a product of simplification.

How did the ConCom come up with 18 federated states? Simple: the current 17 regions plus what it calls a Negrosanon region. But the creation of the latter means the breakup of the current Central Visayas region (again) because Negros Oriental would already be pulled out. Even breaking up Central Visayas is complicated.

Where would you put Cebu? Sitoy thinks the province can stand alone as a separate federated region, which would mean that Bohol would be shifted to Eastern Visayas and Siquijor told to join Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental in the Negrosanon region. Will the constituents of these provinces be amenable to that?

That is one problem with a federal system that is being turned on its head, meaning that instead of the states being formed before they unite into a federation, the existing state is transformed into a “federation” and broken into smaller federated regions—artificially, one must say.

Worse, in the push for federalism under the Duterte administration, the ConCom is doing the breaking up of the country on its own, without consulting those affected by the division. The ConCom is thus imposing its idea on the people instead of the people deciding on their own how the country should be divided.

This aspect of the federalism push would be, as Tagalogs would say, “madugo.” Consider: when a redistricting was suggested for Cebu, there was resistance to separating Compostela from the fifth district to rationalize the breakup of the sixth district with the plan for Mandaue City to become a separate district.

The lack of consultation is damaging to the effort by the Duterte administration to rush the shift to the federal setup.