Federalism would finally give us justice
The Year 2018 is the Year of Hope for many people and for many of us in the Visayas and Mindanao. The hope within our hearts was what launched Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte into the presidency because of his promise to push for that paradigm shift from our present unitary form of government to a federal form, something that we’ve been pushing for decades simply because after the EDSA Revolt of 1986, the framers of the 1987 Constitution gave us a constitution not much different from our previous constitution which is a unitary form of governance.
There is no doubt that Metro Manila benefited most from our unitary form of governance… because they have become the critical mass for our political life, our government center and business center. Everything is focused in Metro Manila… while the rest of the cities in the provinces have to line up to get their Internal Revenue Allotments (IRA) that’s if they kowtow to the political powers that be!
This is why so many lies are being peddled in our national dailies about the dangers of shifting to a federal form of government. The worse amongst them was an article in the PDI, which declared that federalism would spawn Warlordism! I wrote an article in response to that stupidity asking the author if he can name a single warlord in the federal states of the United States? Of course we got no reply because there are no warlords in America. But our current unitary form of government have spawned political warlords from way back when… I won’t name them, as most people already know who are the warlords in their respective provinces.
With all due respect to former Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. and Christian and Solita Monsod who have been peddling ugly stories about a federal system of governance; I will only point out one issue that has been denied to the Filipino people from the time of the Marcos Dictatorship and through the 30 years after the EDSA Revolt under the 1987 Cory Constitution. It is called Justice which has been denied to our people for so long!
I have a long list of cases filed in the Office of the Ombudsman, which have languished in the central office for so long. I’m referring to the Girl Scout scam in Cebu that way back in 2004, no less than his Eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal wrote the Ombudsman to no avail. Well, the good Cardinal died a couple of months ago and the case is still up in the air. This is why no matter how Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte keeps up the fight against corruption, he can only do so much unless he changes our present system where justice relies heavily on the hands of Imperial Manila.
If we had a federal system of governance, we would have our own Ombudsman in our federal state and this means that Justice would be within reach by the people living in our locality…This also means that we in the media can pressure the Ombudsman who might sit on a case and have him replaced if he doesn’t act with dispatch. Of course safeguards have to be made when choosing our federal ombudsman, which is very important.
From page 5 While I strongly believe in a Federal form of governance, it must also go hand-in-hand with an anti-dynasty bill, which the 1987 Constitution framers failed to do because it relied on Congress to enact such a law, which would abolish many of these politicians. An anti-dynasty law must be included in the new and reformed federalized Philippine Constitution, then believe me, this nation can finally see a new dawn happening in our country. I read with interest the news report of a recent survey by Gallup International Association (GIA) that the Philippines is the third happiest country in the world in 2017. This Gallup survey came from its 41st Annual Global End of the Year Survey, which found that 86 percent of Filipinos claimed they were happy against only two percent saying otherwise or a net score of +84. Ten percent answered they were neither happy nor unhappy.
In reaction to this Gallup poll, Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said, “In the coming months and years of this administration, we are determined to give greater substance and a more solid foundation for our people’s happiness through a booming economy, effective governance, enduring peace and justice. Even in the bleakest and dire moments of our history as a nation, Filipinos have shown their immense capacity for hope and happiness.”
I would like to believe that this is true… because Filipinos in general always show their smiling faces even in the midst of adversity. CNN and many other news organizations found this out when they covered the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo and the Super Typhoon Yolanda where people fleeing from these natural disasters would smile at those international reporters.