The plot thickens

It is easy to see how it all began, one quiet day not too long ago. What’s harder to see is how it will end.

It happened in a sprawling high ceilinged house with a well-lit swimming pool in a posh village, so said the men in that crucial meeting.

There she was, they said, talking in all confidence in her trademark monotone voice.

Someday in July in the near future, she said, it will happen and they should watch with bated breath – the tide will change and a leader will fall and she will become the Speaker of the House.

She will get it, she said, because she can deliver the one thing the President wants – federalism.

And so it happened on a drama-filled Monday never before seen at a president’s State of the Nation Address.

Welcome to the Philippines, welcome to mayhem. It was literally a muted affair when the lady in the red tangerine top and a shiny gold necklace walked up to the rostrum – the sound system uttered no sound and the little piece they call the Mace was missing.

The power grab failed at least at that moment, but it would only be a portent of things to come because soon after the grand speech, winter would come after all for the man from Davao del Norte.

But the story really is not about this woman’s mighty return to power – she and her boys were back a long time ago, soon after her friend became the country’s 16th president.

The story really is her promise to make federalism a reality. And this is where it all began.

Federalism

It started with the President’s grand plan to make Mindanao more powerful than ever by pushing for a controversial constitutional change to adopt a US-style federal structure.

The country will be divided into 18 federal regions. It’s a way to share the country’s wealth to poorer regions and provinces, the President said.

It sounds promising and those tired of Imperial Manila are obviously convinced.

But there is one thing they fail to see. In a country where political clans are kings, federalism will not work.

We are familiar with their names. They are synonymous with the provinces they’ve long conquered – from rice producing towns to surfing capitals.

And some names don’t just ring a bell. One name for instance is even synonymous to a gruesome massacre along an off-road barren patch of earth in the southern Philippines, the one that killed 58 men and women one day in November, nine years ago.

Under the Lord’s Shadow*

In the President’s grand plan, the regions will have expanded powers to impose taxes and build economic zones. They will get at least half the revenue collected by the government.

He wants more investments to go the provinces to help bridge the wide gap between the rich and the poor.

But I argue that the country’s inequality stems not from inefficient division of wealth, but from rampant corruption and greed by the political clans and some warlords controlling the different provinces.

Mr. President, there is very little wealth to share because it is stolen by a powerful few. Aging infrastructure in the provinces such as non-existent farm to market roads, is just one problem turning off investors. To build a power plant in the provinces requires grease money every step of the way, said a big industry player. The list can go on and on.

The poorest provinces in the country are found in Mindanao and Visayas and some of them are notoriously corrupt.

The woman who will deliver the federalism plate knows this well. In fact, she was accused of ordering massive cheating in Maguindanao in the 2007 elections with the help of the ruling clans in the province. She denied the charges.

Sitio Kuhan

There is a place in Sitio Kuhan in Maguindanao I will never forget. It is a testament to the corruption and neglect by the local government.

It’s a forgotten place with no electricity and no water. There is no transportation, except one or two motorcycles that come and go across rugged terrain riddled with boulders and covered with potholes.

If you want a ride, you have to stand beside a tree behind a thatched house. It is only from this spot where one can obtain – only if one is lucky enough – a mobile phone signal. You send a message to the men who drive the motorcycles roaming nearby villages and they will come and get you for at least P200, depending on where you’re going.

Kuhan is a farming village teeming with poverty. The men spend the whole year toiling kernels of corn in distant farms that are not their own.

I met a 22-year old villager during my visit to this end of the earth not too long ago.

“Try living here and you’ll be lucky if you can even buy yourself an underwear.” Poverty is at its worst. And Kuhan is just one village. In another place in Shariff Aguak in the same province, a warlord’s sprawling red-roofed mansion stands strong and imposing, casting shadows on the road.

Indeed, it’s easy to see how it all began. What I can’t imagine is how this will end.

(*Under the Lord’s Shadow is a borrowed subtitle. It is actually the title of the documentary of photojournalist Jes Aznar on Mindanao)

Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is eyesgonzales@gmail.com