Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said the public should trust President Duterte and Congress that they would do the right thing in shifting to a federal form of government through a Constituent Assembly.
Alvarez made the appeal amid a debate on whether there was a need to amend the Constitution and how to effect this change.
“I have faith in my colleagues in the House and senators who were elected by the people. I also trust the President who got a huge mandate from the people,” said Alvarez in a television debate with Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who opposed the shift to federalism and the administration’s proposed Con-ass mode.
Lagman said that Alvarez should also trust the delegates to be elected in a Constitutional Convention, which he believed was more appropriate to handle a wholesale change in the Charter than Con-ass, and would work for the best interest of the country.
Alvarez said it was time to ride on a “new vehicle” rather than stay on an old and beat-up model which continued to be broken no matter what repairs were being done
Alvarez said the decentralization of powers in a federal system would allow each state to control their economy and natural resources, as well as chart their own destiny.
Lagman said he was wary of Alvarez treating federalism as a sort of panacea to corruption, drugs, and poverty.
He said federalized countries like the United States, Brazil, Russia and Mexico have the same problems as the Philippines and that he believed changing a government system was not the solution.
Alvarez said that under his proposal, poor provinces like Samar and Leyte, could join with more prosperous neighbors such as Cebu and Bohol to have a more balanced state.
Another example was merging Caraga region — Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur — with Davao. Under his proposal, a state would retain 80 percent of its resources and income and remit only 20 percent to the central government.
Lagman, however, said that such a proposal was doomed to fail because the poor provinces would tend to pull down the rich members of their state.
“That is counter-productive. The Philippines has only three regions that could be considered as self-sufficient,” said Lagman.
Based on their gross domestic product, Lagman said these regions were Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Southern Luzon.
“All the rest are not self-sufficient; they will just depend on the central government. If the central government abandons them to their own resources, then these regions will remain underdeveloped,” said Lagman.
Lagman said it was easy to peg the percentage of income to be retained per state but no study has shown whether that amount would be enough for a region to survive on its own feet.
Alvarez said studies would be made in the course of the deliberations of the planned Constituent Assembly and his proposal for President Duterte to appoint the members of a constitutional commission (con-com) to advise Congress.
But Lagman said former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had formed her con-com on Charter change and nobody listened. He said there was no assurance that the con-com’s recommendations would have any weight in the debates.
Alvarez assured that the President would listen to the advice of the con-com even if it recommended not to pursue federalism.
However, Lagman said the con-com was unlikely to make a no-go recommendation because the President would use all his resources to “pack the jury” with like-minded people who believe that federalism was the answer. JE/rga