'Imperial Manila' and the federalist dream

Jamil Maidan Flores, Jakarta

"It's the system, stupid!" some Filipinos are telling their countrymen these days.

"You can keep changing presidents," they scold, "you can throw out the rascals in government every election time, you can even mount a coup d'etat or a people power revolt every weekend, but if you don't change the system, your problems will be same-old- same-old."

And the cure? Go into a process called "cha-cha" -- not the Latin-American shuffle, stupid, but "charter change," an overhaul of the constitution.

Not too long ago, not too many Filipinos were interested in amending the constitution. Those who advocated it were imputed sinister motives. But maybe today most Filipinos feel they have had so much trouble, they will try anything to get a semblance of stability.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gave the cha-cha movement a big push after she had gotten into political boiling water on charges that members of her family were on the take from an illegal lottery and that she won the presidential election of last year by rigging it.

Her critics say she is putting the blame on the system for her own sins. She denies the charges and maintains that since she has put economic reforms in place, now she must focus on political reform, meaning constitutional change.

The Philippine constitution today is presidential, bicameral and unitary. This is the system that people say has not worked.

The basic changes most often proposed are: Make the government parliamentary, and/or make it unicameral, and/or make it federal. President Arroyo, former President Ramos and Speaker Jose de Venecia of the House of Representatives have come out in favor of a package of all three. There are, of course, many possible combinations.

Of these three proposed changes, the notion of making the Philippines a federal republic creates the most sparks in debates going on all over the country.

Not surprisingly, the most passionate voices calling for a federal form of government come from the Visayas, the islands of central Philippines, and Mindanao in the South. The call is usually attended by a litany of grievances against the negligence and exploitative dominance of "Imperial Manila."

They gripe that the sharing of powers and resources between Manila and the periphery is one-sided. They grumble about the "distance" between governors and governed. National officials, they grouse, are out of touch with local realities.

The staunchest defenders of the unitary form of government logically come from Manila and the surrounding provinces. But even in these places, the federalist idea has adherents. Many say their only misgiving on federalism is that it is linked to the political survival of President Arroyo.

There are those who oppose it because it will lead to secession. There are also those who argue that it prevents secession. It will solve the intractable problem of Moro uprisings in Mindanao, they say.

Some advocate federalism because devolution of the powers of the central government to the local governments, which has been the Philippine policy for decades, is a great success. But there are also those who support it for the opposite reason: devolution, they say, has been a dismal failure. So let's go federal.

The chief argument against federalism is that it will create new tiers of bureaucrats and politicians and bloat the national deficit. It will create new opportunities for corruption. Moreover, it will further entrench political families and warlords that have locked some provinces in a death's grip. It will give new life and meaning to Philippine feudalism.

Federalism, it is argued, suits large land masses like Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia. An archipelago like the Philippines should remain unitary. Look at the only two other archipelagos in the world, Japan and Indonesia. They are unitary!

Then there is the argument of history. Nations decide to be unitary or federal at the moment of their conception, say the unitary advocates.

In the Philippines, that moment was soon after the 1896 revolution, in late 1898 when the Malolos Constitution, the first republican constitution in Asia, was written. That revolutionary assembly chose that the Philippine Republic be unitary.

Let us give due respect to the choice of the heroes of the 1896 revolution, they say. Let us not go against the fondest wishes of the founding fathers.

This may be effective emotional rhetoric, but poor historiography. In fact, there was no final decision on the issue at that time. The Malolos Constitution, written under conditions of war with the Americans, was provisional.

Moreover, at that time, the revolutionary President, Emilio Aguinaldo, had the clear and well-documented intention of seeking union with Muslim Mindanao on a federal basis.

But before they could iron things out, heavy fighting broke out with the Americans who had months earlier occupied Manila. The fighting that ensued was fierce and bitter, but the poorly armed revolutionaries were no match to the rising world power of that era.

Eventually the unitary form of government jelled under American tutelage.

At the end of the day, does it matter? There are corrupt unitary governments and corrupt federal governments. Some of the poorest countries are unitary, but there are also federal governments that are dirt poor. There are secessionist movements in unitary countries and also in federal countries.

Changes can be made for the better, of course, if changes have to be made. But don't expect the waters to part for the Filipino nation just because it makes a choice between presidential and parliamentary, between unicameral and bicameral, between unitary and federal.

One should say to the next fellow Filipino that one meets: "Maybe it's not the system, stupid. Maybe it's us!"

The writer is a long-time Filipino resident of Jakarta who continues to observe Philippine events with a dispassionate eye. The views expressed in this article are his own.