29/03/2018
Maharlika Tribes 1-Nation supports Pres. DU30 federalist government
PEOPLE MUST KNOW
By: Prof. Rizaldy “RC” Credo Montebon
Columnist/Correspondent
Zamboanga Peninsula Journal and Maharlika Tribes International News Bureau
Proposed Federalist Government for the Philippines:
Its Prospects, Challenges and Implications (PART 2)
In Part 1 of our discussion on the Proposed Federalist Government for the Philippines: Its Prospects, Challenges and Implications, we are being educated how our history have been working during the time of our national heroes, Emilio Aguinaldo and Apolinario Mabini in deliberating the concept of Federalism in the Philippines by way of dividing the Philippine islands into three federal states, namely Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, which was the first attempt dividing the Philippines into three federai states. Then, it was followed by another concept of federalism by UP Professor Jose Abueva who said that federal form of government is necessary to more efficiently cater to the needs of the country despite its diversity.
The primary goal of a federalist government is to increase decentralization, greater local power and access to resources most especially among regions outside Metro-Manila which has long been dubbed as imperial, wherein the resources of the poorest regions of Visayas and Mindanao intended for their development activities were poured out to Metropolis cities of Luzon, particularly Manila, in which made them progressively developed.
It was also mentioned in Part 1 that former Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, Jr. Played played a vital role in federalizing Philippine in 2001. Pimentel had advocated in his proposed federal system that he sees as a key component in alleviating the Visayas and Mindanao poverty and insurgency problems, especially the appeasing Moro insurgents. He added that the proposed system will also hasten economic development since resource and financial mobilization is upon each states' or provinces' discretion without significant constraint from the central government.
However, some political scientists and economists said that Federalism can be only realized through a constitutional amendment, either by public peaceful assembly or convention to be voted in Congress and Senate.
Moreover, since 2014, Davao City mayor now President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Roa Duterte launched a nationwide campaign promoting a charter change through federalism.
In his visit to the different cities of the country, he stated that federalism will facilitate better delivery of services to the people. He also saw the current system as "antiquated" where distribution of public funds is disproportionately biased towards Manila. Aside from the economic aspect, federalism is also seen as the best means to address problems in Mindanao which suffers from ethno-religious conflicts. He added that the current unitary form of government has not worked well given the ethnic diversity in the country.
In other words, Federalism is not new to the Filipinos because of the many attempts to run the Philippines under a federalist government.
On the local point of view, some of the scholars, professors, academicians, and practitioners have pointed out that to impose federalist government in the Philippines is untimely and inappropriate as of this point in time since the country is confronted with extremism ideology. Hence, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte should not be in a hurry or so eager to pursue his aim to federalize the nation in order to realize the long overdue proposed federalization concept; but instead to pave way of assessing first or studying further the possible implications/consequences it may contribute vis-à-vis the on-going extremism in the country.
From the standpoint of this writer, federalist government is the solution of armed conflict in the Philippines. As the country is in the stage of recovering from economic and insurgency devastation for several decades, it is high time to find for the right answer and it is through developing regions to become federal states.
It is said that it is high time to give way for federalist government as we liberate Mindanao from “war against terror.” With Marawi incident from the adverse effect of lawless violence, and now declared peaceful and ready for recovery and rehabilitation programs, let’s try federal system to change the coarse of people’s way of life. We are governed under a unitary-democratic form of government for so long a time, but still we suffered enormous socio-economic difficulties brought about by the lack of opportunity to economically prosper. Mindanaoans was deprived of socio-economic activities such as livelihood/entrepreneurial engagement, access to education and skills training programs, infrastructure development, tourism, and many others.
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Based from the opinion of economic experts, economic impact of Mindanao‘s Martial Law declaration is limited in the sense that the declaration amid the battle between government troops and the ISIS-inspired Maute group have no significant impact to the overall Philippine’s economic prospects, but exclusive to Marawi City’s business activity only.
To supplement this idea, in a research conducted by the Credit watchdog Moody's Investors Service, it says that the ongoing siege and imposition of martial law will not materially impact the country's economic outlook. However, it is expected that the impact on economic activity from the Marawi’s crisis would result to be minimal and short-lived.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of Martial Law in Marawi is to merely suppress an invasion crisis as government troops fought Islamist militants whose intention is to put up and expand ISIS Islamic ideology in the country and Marawi in Mindanao was chosen as its ISIS main defence territory.
Moreover, Moody Investors Service emphasized it is unlikely that recent developments in Mindanao would not lead to changes in economic and fiscal policies, which continue to anchor on Duterte's well-articulated 10-point socio-economic development agenda that seeks to improve revenue generation through tax reform, lift infrastructure spending beyond 5 percent of GDP and increase investment in human capital and development, despite of the recent Marawi upraising.
On the other hand, if recent Marawi upraising will lead to prolong the uncertainty of the businessmen that Philippine’s national security or governance would be affected, therefore the country’s business climate would eventually dampen resulting to economic instability. But, the Duterte’s administration is optimistic that the trouble is only confined in Marawi and the country’s business climate will generally continue and prosper.
Communities armed conflict affected-area in Marawi according to some commissioned economists and researchers may not be needed to prolong the imposition of Martial Law because it is temporary in nature. Prolonging Martial Law would also prolong the worries of the people of Marawi, and thus practically affect their economic activities. .
Experts added that if Marawi violence escalates in other parts of Mindanao and the government continues martial rule, a significant constraint to the country’s economy and its contribution to national output will remain positive, although business entries will be little bit shy. In general, the country business climate will still remain progressively intact. .
Since the fighting is still in progress in some isolated areas of Marawi, Moody articulated that there has been limited but insignificant disruptions to economic activity in other parts of Mindanao as authorities have sought to contain the spread of violence through enhanced surveillance.
Beyond the immediate implications of the crisis in Marawi, President Duterte has publicly stated his willingness to bypass safeguards provided by the constitution against the arbitrary declaration of martial law, including the power of Congress and the Supreme Court to review, and even revoke martial law.
Despite Duterte's threat to impose martial law beyond Mindanao using the Marawi incident, Moody noted that officials from the executive branch have since clarified that constitutional safeguards will be necessary, thus we do not expect the prolong of martial law beyond the resolution or dissipation of the immediate threat posed by the Marawi crisis. Nevertheless, any challenges to the constitutional system of checks and balances could undermine the improvement in institutional strength in the Philippines.
Along with enhancements to government effectiveness and the control of terrorism and thus ensure stable peace and order of the country, the greater policy predictability afforded by better rule of law has underpinned a more favorable environment for economic growth and investment opportunity.
In the case of this writer’s opinion, the imposition of Martial Law is in order because of the emerging “war and terror” in Marawi that need to be dealt with applying government’s rule of law and force to eliminate lawless violence; hence will protect business activities.
This writer also agreed with the conclusions of Moody and other economists and researchers that the crisis in Marawi will not affect the overall business situation of the Philippines as it is limited to Marawi’s war zone only and eventually has no significant impact to the country’s economic growth and prospect.
from RAs a Sociology Professor, this writer vehemently opposes to the good judgment of my co-professors as to the good intention of President Duterte to eagerly pursue his aim to shift our present unitary form of government to a federal one.
It does not make sense why we should stop President Duterte’s swift action to solve the many decades peace and order issues of the Philippines through federalization of our regions into federal states. The long decades of insurgency/rebellion including terrorism influenced by radicalism or fanaticism by some notorious groups in our country, especially in Mindanao was because of the lack of equal opportunities to improve people’s lives. The inaccessibility to education, jobless, discrimination, starvation, and other social and economic needs were not addressed by the previous governments. It simply means that people who are deprived of equal opportunities and starving for food can be easily influenced or used by extremist or political groups to follow their way for survival and comforts.
For this reason, the urgent need to imposed Federalist government is vital for it is the only solution to the Mindanao’s peace and development issues. Mindanao was totally deprived of so many developments of the past, despite of its merger resources not being utilized in developing Mindanao’s poorest of the poor remote areas such as low income earner towns and provinces, but instead Luzon, especially Imperial Manila and the other cities got and utilized the bigger share of Mindanao’s income.
By addressing the main cause of Mindanao’s armed conflict and the deprivation of the right to make use of the Mindanao’s rich capacities to develop less-fortunate communities leading to progressive status can already give full autonomy to people and their leaders to gainfully addressed the need of education, employment, gender equality, fair judgment, social responsibility to manage things of their own, and many other social and economic requirements to sustain basic necessities of lives. In this manner, it will also ease extremism involvement of our less-privileged individuals which by force of consequences have to engage in illegal means of earning money merely to support the basic needs of their families.
Why stop Duterte’s government to implement federalism ideology when in fact it was already tested during the time of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, the declaration of Martial Law under a parliamentarian government and the enactment of RA 7160, otherwise known as the "Local Government Code of 1991" (LGC) which says that it is the policy of the State to grant local government units a genuine and meaningful local autonomy that will empower and enable them to attain their fullest development as self-sustaining and reliant communities and make them more effective partners or contributors in the attainment of the Philippine’s national goals and ultimately the national economy as well. Toward this end, the State shall provide local governments a more responsive and accountable local government structure instituted through decentralization and devolution processes whereby local government units shall be given more powers, authority, responsibilities, and resources to manage their governmental affairs. The process of decentralization shall proceed from the National Government to the local government units.
In conclusion, the action of the Duterte administration relative to the proposed federal type of government for the Philippines is a matter of realizing the Abueva and Pimentel proposed federal government. It includes also the strengthening/expanding of the existing territorial and political jurisdictions and powers of the local regions or governments under the Local Government Code of the Philippines and the full implementation of the federalist government.
As to the Martial rule in Mindanao due to the Marawi siege, I/we in the Civilian Authority under a Martial Law declaration is supreme and or over and above our government, police and the military. Therefore, if the State is in an imminent danger such as invasion or rebellion like what happened in Zamboanga and lately Marawi, we automatically allow the use of police power to our law enforcers to protect the citizenry of a State from the effects of lawlessness.
For now and onward, we should not panic and anxious because we are safe and under the protection of our law enforcers. What we should do is to be alert and vigilant, and cooperative to our local officials to report any suspicious-looking individuals and properties in our surrounding to avert imminent risks.
We are in a democratic society; democracy is real and definitely working on us against any imminent threat. We are bound by our democratic rights and all other processes that will prevent abuses to hamper us.
Lastly, we should support our government in this time of crises. The government task is to serve and protect us and for whatever decisions and actions the concerned government do/does, it must be within the confinement of our laws. It is an assurance from this writer for it is his duty as information vanguard of our democracy.
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