BUTUAN CITY — While President Duterte was in Israel and Senator Trillanes fought off an impending arrest, more than 300 people, wearing red, and who called their group Mula sa Masa Duterte Movement (MMDM), gathered here from the five provinces of Caraga, calling for President Duterte to declare a revolutionary government.
Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III, who guested in this gathering, told people here his agency had been initiating calls for a transitory revolutionary government to switch to the federal system of government.
Densing said since the election of delegates for the constitutional convention to draft a new federal constitution would no longer be possible because of the upcoming elections next year, they would vigorously pursue (the declaration of revolutionary government) in the remaining two years of the Duterte administration.
“That’s what we’ve been pushing since last year,” Densing told the Inquirer in an interview during the event.
“What we are pushing now is the same concept as people’s government because we think that federalism will not happen if people will not intervene. People are allowed in the Constitution to push for a revolutionary government if they think that the existing government no longer serves their interest,” Densing said.
A people’s initiative to set up a revolutionary government is allowed in the 1987 Constitution, Densing said.
But he added that the 1987 Constitution would be eventually “abrogated” if the people saw that it no longer served their interest.
Wearing red shirts printed with, “Federalism Now! Through RevGov in a democratic way,” the 300 MMDM leaders converged at the Capitol gym here from the five provinces of Caraga region.
They said they came to organize what they called, “Peoples Council” to stomp out corruption at all levels of the local government and gather popular support for a Duterte-led revolutionary government.
Emmanuel Dadulla, MMDM national president, said they had been asking President Duterte to declare a revolutionary government as the fastest way for the country to shift to federalism.
“Presidente Duterte should use the sovereign will of the people to declare a revolutionary government to rightfully change the system of our government,” Dadulla said. “This is a vehicle of a transition that will suspend and remove all the stumbling blocks of the new system of governance.”
Leonardo Vistal, Caraga MMDM president, said they would organize at least 20 members for each village throughout the region to form part of the People’s Council for Change.
Densing said the People’s Council would serve as the advisory board of President Duterte and would also be tasked to check if he (Duterte) would abuse his power.
“The first thing he had to do is sign a provisional Constitution embodying the Bill of Rights and then issue an executive order creating a constitutional commission,” Densing said.
He also said President Duterte would have to dissolve Congress and declare all elected government positions from the vice president down to the barangay level vacant so that the people themselves could recommend a new set of officials.
“In the proposed RevGov, we want to suspend the 1987 Constitution, people will push for people’s government, they will push President Duterte to do People Power so that he would serve as President during the revolutionary period. Once, he is there, he will accept the revolutionary power and the first thing he should do is sign a provisional constitution with the Bill of Rights; then issue an executive order to organize a constitutional commission to set up the federal constitution of the Philippines,” Densing said.
Densing, a former assistant secretary, who assumed his post only in May, said it was part of the agency’s mandate to encourage people’s participation down to the grassroots level./lb