PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. ran on the “Partido Federal ng Pilipinas” platform. One can argue that he won not because of the interest the party represented but because he was — and is — popular, but the point is that the party exists and that it could carry a presidential candidate to Malacañan Palace. The Partido Federal has a vision of a federal republic — one that was formally proposed by a committee that former president Rodrigo Duterte had constituted to study the 1987 Constitution. I was part of that committee over which former chief justice Reynato Puno, former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel and law dean Antonio Nachura presided. There were noted academics in that team, including Prof. Julio Teehankee and Prof. Edmund Tayao.
Why should it be worthwhile keeping the dream alive — in fact, seeing it come to fruition through a revision of our Constitution? The most compelling argument comes from the particular configuration of our country. Aside from its archipelagic character, the geographical hurdles that keep the regions apart are difficult to clear. For the longest time, to cite an example, it has been proposed to extend rail services to the Cagayan Valley. Nothing came of the bold proposal aside from well-applauded ceremonious inaugurals. One has only to remember how many days it took for assistance from the national government to reach the stricken municipalities and barangay (villages) in Leyte following the onslaught of Super Typhoon Yolanda.
We have long dreamed the dream of decentralization — but have regrettably been timid about taking the necessary steps toward transforming it into reality, and this means revising the Constitution. When one changes the very structure of government, one deals with constitutional revision rather than constitutional amendment. Once more, of course, we must address the jaundiced trepidation about constitutional revision. Rather than fear it, we should welcome it as evidence of our political maturation as a people and as a democracy. It is true, of course, that a federal configuration of government involves many moving parts — but we are capable of dealing with complex change. We navigated our way through EDSA 1 and EDSA 2, and we have done so without ever yielding our democracy to adventurists and opportunists. In fact, it seems to be the wiser thing to bring about change according to the terms of the Constitution itself and to steal the thunder from those who would bring about reforms by seizing authority themselves!
Federalism is the ultimate form of decentralization that preserves the unity of the State. In the course I teach on comparative federal systems at San Beda, I like to characterize federal systems as employing sovereignty on two levels: the nation is sovereign, and the federated units (whether they be called states, cantons, provinces or regions) are sovereign — and the challenge in drawing up the necessary constitutional revisions consists in balancing these two foci of sovereignty. Precisely because the federated units enjoy, genuinely, their own level of sovereignty, they are able to act more decisively, respond with greater urgency and act with more relevance when circumstances so demand.
In fact, in Spain and in Italy, countries that strictly speaking are not federal, constitutional provisions are in place that guarantee the autonomy of some regions, allowing for a “de facto” federalism. There is a concept of federalism. There is no model of federalism, because no one size fits all. We will have to discern from the extant federal systems how we should configure our country. But for federalism to be real, the federated units must truly possess the competence to legislate and administer clearly defined matters that the national government cannot undo or set aside.
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