GIVEN what you know about the Philippine condition and what you have learned about federalism, is federalism a necessary condition for Philippine sustainable growth and development?
As debates on federalism intensify, advocates and critics alike must have a careful deliberation before deciding on this major agenda. While federalism will eventually be a political process, it should first be anchored on a non-partisan, objective and scientific study to achieve its goals and desired outcomes.
What is clear is the need for the Philippine government to design its own decentralized form of government. We can learn lessons from other federal systems but we cannot just copy from them. Our design has to be creative, contextual, and uniquely Filipino that meets our specific needs.
The importance of probing deeper into the proposed change in government system cannot be overemphasized. We must do this to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls in older federations. In borrowing concept sand ideas from federal countries, we would like to understand the guiding principles so that we can properly adopt them and even adapt them to local conditions.
Yes, there must be intelligent discourse on federalism to help the public and policymakers make an informed decision. Policymakers should see merit in examining whether federalism can indeed address the socio-political and economic problems that hamper the country’s growth.
Key issues on federalism, such as its political feasibility in the Philippines, the form and fiscal design of a federal government, as well as the implications of federalism given the country’s political, economic, social, and historical contexts, must be thoroughly discussed. No one has the monopoly of knowledge on federalism.
Behind the current calls for a shift to a federal form is the frustration of some Filipinos, especially those living in the Visayas and Mindanao, on the concentration of both political and economic powers in Manila. Such concentration of power since the Spanish period in the Philippines has resulted to the uneven development in the country today.
Despite the passage of the Local Government Code, genuine decentralization has not been fully realized. Local governments continue to face various challenges in their exercise of functions, primarily because of the imbalance in resource-generation capacities between them and the national government.
Those who support a federalist structure of government maintain that it is the best way to address rooted political and economic problems, especially poverty and the separatist movement in the countryside. However, they must clarify the policy discourse on federalism given that there is not only one model of federalism that countries with a federal structure of government have followed.
