Practicability of Federalism

Your honors, ladies and gentlemen good evening.

To begin with, let me emphasize that there is no perfect form of government. Each form
of government has its own advantages and disadvantages. In considering a form of
government for its effectiveness, geographical and cultural considerations are among
the factors.
Let me bring you to my points in addressing the practicability of shifting from a
unitary form of government to a federal one:
1. As regards to the main issue of feasibility, it is our position that shifting to
federalism through constitutional revision, wherein the manner of its
implementation is provided under our constitution, is indeed very feasible.
Yes, it is costly, but being costly alone does not mean it is not feasible or doable.
Our constitution provides methods on how to amend or revise the constitution
itself. The said methods are costly. However, the costs itself are of no moment,
since it can be outweighed by the enormous benefits that can be obtained in
shifting to federalism. We, therefore, look at the long term effects of this shift.
Elections, for example, of senators, will not be done at large. Considering that
based on the article in Philstar, Comelec spent around P9 billion pesos in the
conduct of the 2016 national election, with more reason that our government can
spend for the said constitutional revision.
2. The second point is in regards to our countrys geographical nature. The
Philippines is composed of more than 7100 islands. Under the federal system, all
component states collect their own taxes and contribute only a small fraction of
their revenues to the federal or central government for a limited centralized
functions, namely: National Defense, including the National Police, Justice and
Foreign Affairs. All the rest shall be left to each state, including health, education,
labor and employment, trade, transportation, communication, agriculture,
agrarian reform, justice environment, natural resources. Each state will manage
its own mining and forest matters and shall control all natural resources. Since
local states, under the federal system is given real autonomy, then it follows that
the issue of decentralization, especially in Metro Manila can also be addressed,
considering that the offices which used to be centralized in Manila are now under
devolution. It will have a huge impact on the decongestion of Manila as well as it
will also expedite the processes which are usually under the approval of the
national offices.
Having a greater extent of local autonomy, the peculiar problems can be best
handled under the federal form of government. Although as early as 1991 when
the Local Government Code was passed, local autonomy has already been
introduced. The question, however, is if there is indeed real autonomy. In League
of Cities in the Philippines et al. v. COMELEC et al., G.R. No. 176951,
February 15, 2011, the petitioners expressed concerns that the share of
legitimate cities in the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) would decrease if the 16
illegitimate cities would be included in the computation. It can be deduced that
there are many places in the country that are poor. The petitioners opposition
showed the disunited provinces, cities, municipalities competing and fighting

against each other for higher national taxes allotment share. In fine, local
governments want to raise the ante in the matter of power-tax-and-revenue
sharing with the central government in order to spur more growth and
development across the country. Notwithstanding what the Code was able to
accomplish, much remains to be done. Since we are living in this kind of status
quo, we are left with no choice but to move forward by making a huge leap in
shifting to a federal form of government.

3. The third point is in addressing the issue of the delay of the delivery of basic
services. The federal system of government can best address it since local
states have full control as to the allocation of funds for basic services as well as
on contingencies.
Finally, on the issue of corruption, it is our position that under a federal
government it could be minimized as to its extent, since it could no longer affect the
whole economy of the nation when one state is corrupt then it will be confined within
such particular state. According to an Australian Lawyer named Geoffrey de Q. Walker,
one of the advantages of a federal form of government is the so-called Fail-safe
design:
Besides acting as a brake on extreme or impetuous federal government activity,
federalism cushions the nation as a whole from the full impact of government errors or
other reverses. Lord Bryce likened a federal nation to a ship built with watertight
compartments.
For the same reason, damage control can bring results more quickly when the
impact or a mistake or misfortune can be localized in this way.
Mr. Moderator, I now rest my case.