The chairman of President Rodrigo Duterte’s charter change committee said on Tuesday that the Philippines has a “failing democracy” because the current unitary government is “Metro Manila-centric.”
In a speech at the Philippine International Convention Center, former Chief Justice Reynato Puno, who leads the 22-member Consultative Committee (Con-com), asked, “What is wrong with our unitary government? What is wrong is blatant to our senses. It is the over-concentration of power in the national government.”
“We cannot continue to be a failing democracy,” said Puno as he explained his vote in favor of approving the final draft of the proposed federal Constitution.
Metro Manila-centric
For Puno, there is a need to break the “over-concentration” of powers as the prevailing unitary government is “Metro Manila-centric.”
“Our government is Metro Manila-centric,” Puno said. “Everything orbits in Manila. The result is a catastrophe. Metro Manila wallows in prosperity while the other regions sink into poverty.”
“The antidote is federalism because the essence of federalism is non-concentration of powers, in contrast to unitarianism,” he said.
Puno explained that under the prevailing unitary system, the government can always take back the powers it delegates to other regions.
“Delegated powers can be changed, can be subjected to arbitrary conditions depending on the discretion of the unitary government,” Puno said.
The former Chief Justice noted that “it took eons before the unitary government delegated housing and education powers to our local government.” However, the delegation was “not accompanied by appropriate financial support,” he said.
“All said and done, our regions need to be given their own exclusive powers given rationally by the Constitution itself and not given by the national government through laws that they can change capriciously and whimsical,” Puno said.
“It is time for our regions to be liberated, time to be freed from the shackles of the national government. This can only be done if we adopt federalism,” he said.
Actual, speedy delivery of justice
Meanwhile, former Senate President and Con-com member Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. said that shifting to federalism would deliver “actual and speedy delivery of justice.”
“Many exceptional provisions have been cited by our colleagues who spoke before me, but among the more outstanding provisions recommended for inclusion in the new Constitution that I must mention are the articles that assure of actual and speedy delivery of justice,” Pimentel said in his speech.
“Delay in the delivery of justice is one of the most pressing problems of our land,” he stressed.
The Con-com on Tuesday, July 2, approved the final draft of the proposed federal Constitution. Con-com spokesman Ding Generoso said the final draft would be submitted to President Duterte on or before July 9.
Duterte created the Con-com to fulfill his promise to change the Philippines’ current unitary government into a federal government to decentralize power from the National Capital Region. /vvp