Rizal, a century and a federal republic hence

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“[ONCE liberated] the islands will adopt probably a federal republic.”

Dr. Jose Rizal put this idea forward in an essay published in La Solidaridad in 1889-1890. “Las Filipinas Dentro de Cien Anos (The Philippines a Century Hence)” is deemed the national hero’s most prescient essay for a number of predictions he boldly made, most of which have come to pass.

This particular prophecy, however, inched snail-paced down the century, prompting remarks that Rizal had failed with this one. Today, his prognosis is catching speed toward the finish line of probable fulfillment with the election of Rodrigo Duterte as the 16th President of the Philippines.

Rizal, however, did not leave detailed reasons for his call for a federal republic. And though he admired what he witnessed in the US when he crossed its heartland on his way back to Europe in 1888, he left no indication that the American federal traditions were the wellsprings of his federalist ideals.

It seemed that his prophetic insights were influenced by Francesc Pi y Margall, the President of the first Spanish Republic in 1873-1874 and federalist who played a prominent role in calling for a federal republican constitution for Spain in the 1883 Republican Congress of Zaragosa.

By that time, Rizal was already in Spain. In fact, within a few months of arriving there in 1882, he had become a friend and intellectual ally of Pi y Margall. The Spanish statesman, older by 37 years, had also become a political mentor to Rizal. Their meetings pondered on broad sociopolitical contradictions of life, including the changes of governments in Spain. They also spoke of developments in the Philippines, which they shared in confidence.

Rizal eventually exposed the dark Spaniards in the Philippines through “Noli Me Tangere.” And he extolled, in La Solidaridad in 1890, the enlightened Spaniards in Spain by giving a glowing review of Pi y Margall’s 1884 tome, “Las Luchas de Nuestros Dias (The Struggles of Our Days).”

He saw the divide between a centralist constitutional monarchy and a liberal federal republic. Taking the road without a clear path, Rizal left a trail in 1889-1890 by prophesying a federal republic for the Philippines. It was a glance, one could say, of profound respect to the ideals of his mentor Pi y Margall. And six years later in 1896, glancing back with a measure of equivalent respect, Pi y Margall pleaded with the Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Canovas to spare Rizal’s life “for the sake of Spain.”

When Rizal died, Emilio Aguinaldo pursued the federalist idea. Wrote the historian O. D. Corpuz:

“During the Revolution, … Aguinaldo directed the Ilongos to set up a federal state for the Visayas, and to invite the Muslims of Maguindanao and Sulu to join the Revolution and establish a similar state organization. Aguinaldo was pursuing Rizal’s 1890 idea of a federal republic covering the archipelago, which explains why the flag of the Revolution and the First Republic had the three stars within the triangle, representing Aguinaldo’s image of the major island groups constituting the archipelago as a federation.”

However, the 1898 Malolos Congress decided, in a time of war, that the more pressing concern was to present a united front against the American enemy. On Jan. 21, 1899, the Congress adopted a unitary form of government with powers firmly exercised at the center. Two days later, the highly centralized First Philippine Republic was inaugurated.

But as also predicted by Rizal, the US wrested away the independence we declared in 1898. War against the new enemy and our subsequent colonization derailed us from developing a constitutional government of our choice. For more than a century since Rizal’s essay was published, we have gone through five centralized unitary republics, including the present one.

By 1899-1900, two proposals for a federal form of government appeared to have been offered to the swiftly ascendant Americans for adoption: An 11-state Federal Republic of the Philippines advocated by a group of Filipinos and a seven-state federal constitution by Isabelo de los Reyes. The Americans rejected both. Decentralization would make it difficult to control the islands they seized for “the benefit of their commerce.” Instead, by 1902, 72,000 American soldiers had been shipped to the Philippines to compel submission. Not even the fiery Gen. Antonio Luna, had he survived Cabanatuan in 1899, could have stemmed the flood.

After two successive and bloody wars, the people were spent. With the capture or surrender of their generals and the treacherous execution by the Americans of the hero Macario Sakay in 1907, the people began to accept the heavy unease of American peace.

The 1935 Constitution, the Commonwealth and the 1946 independence saw the institutionalization of a highly centralized unitary government patterned after the American Constitution but minus its significant federal foundations. In reality, the government preserved, in a time of peace, the concentrated authority of the center which was adopted, in a time of war, by the Malolos Congress to establish the First Philippine Republic.

The 1973 and 1987 Constitutions did not substantially depart from this centralist unitary paradigm. Notable, however, in the convention that framed the 1973 Constitution was the draft Bayanikasan Constitution submitted by Salvador Araneta. It proposed a Federal Republic of the Philippines composed of five states—one each for Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao and Christian Mindanao. It was never adopted.

Various other platforms have since tried to champion federalism. Proposals have come from the Mindanao Council of Leaders, Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan,  Citizens’ Movement for a Federal Philippines,  Coalition for Charter Change now and the 2005 Consultative Commission on Charter Change.

And now Duterte has strongly brought forward Rizal’s vision of a Philippine federal republic. His call for its favorable consideration will bring the nation from a unitary form of government born from the roiling blood of a colonial past to a federal form of government unfolding a future from an ancient heart.

It behooves us all to reflect on his call sublimely and well. As J. W. von Goethe advises: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

(The writer is a former assistant general counsel of the Asian Development Bank. A professor of law and history, he is active with the Knights of Rizal and the Philippine Historical Association.)