GOVERNANCE MATTERS
By JEJOMAR C. BINAY
Former Vice President
One by one, senior Cabinet members have been making public statements that seem to foretell an uncertain future for the federalism initiative.
First it was the country’s economic managers declaring in a Senate hearing last week their opposition to federalism, warning of dire and irreversible economic consequences.
In summary, the economic managers took the position that federalism would put a brake on the country’s economic momentum, trigger a ratings downgrade from creditors, cost billions in setting up a new bureaucracy, and the jobs of thousands of government workers.
These sentiments are not to be dismissed lightly.
Economic managers deal with the tangibles. They thrive on data and analysis. They demand clarity, not generalizations. To them, key provisions, such as revenue generation and sharing, are vaguely written in the draft federal constitution and could lead to the confusion that characterized the decades-old debate on the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA). The recent Supreme Court ruling on the matter, defining the local governments’ share of national taxes to include customs collections, jolted the economic team as it messes up their targets and the government’s fiscal position.
A member of the economic team later issued a more sober re-statement of his remarks before the Senate. However, the point was made clear: the economic managers cannot support federalism as envisioned in the draft federal constitution framed by the presidential committee.
The economic team was followed by the Defense Secretary, who declared that the people are not yet ready for federalism. And just a few days ago, media reported that the president’s Special Assistant publicly acknowledged that the shift to federalism would be “a long shot.”
Discussions on the economic impact of a federal shift has been rather extensive, owing to the statements of the economic managers. One topic that has remained untouched, however, is the impact of federalism on our sense of nationhood and our search for national identity.
Balkanization is a term that originated from the division of what was then the Balkan Peninsula into smaller regions in the early 20th century and refers to the fragmentation of a country or a region into smaller units. Relations between these smaller states are often strained and hostile.Not a few observers have raised fears that federalism would result in the balkanization of the Philippines.
Federalism advocates are fond of citing Malaysia and the United States as models of successful federal governments. Yet they forget to mention that these countries began as separate, independent states (in the case of Malaysia, separate kingdoms) that united in order to survive and meet shared objectives. From separate entities, they formed a whole.
In our case, we are taking what is whole and breaking it apart. Federalism will break us up into separate regions of widely divergent levels of economic, political and social development. Such a fragmentation will further entrench the “tribal” mentality.
While we declare ourselves nominally as Filipinos, we tend to identify ourselves more as members of our respective ethno-linguistic groups. In public gatherings, the Ilocanos will gravitate towards fellow Ilocanos, the Warays with fellow Warays, and so forth. In poorer communities, it is not uncommon to have clusters of neighbors who trace their roots to one town or province, speaking a common tongue. It is also not uncommon for them to make disparaging remarks, in casual settings, against other ethno-linguistic groups.
Until now, associations created along ethno-linguistic lines continue to thrive in universities and colleges. Overseas, such a sense of “tribal” identity is more pronounced among Filipinos working abroad. I have read about a recent survey conducted among our youth showing they would rather be Japanese, Koreans or Americans than Filipinos. It seems we are a nation still searching for a national identity. Federalism, in my view, will only strengthen the rejection of a Filipino identity.
In the 1960s, several initiatives were organized for the purpose of declaring an independent Mindanao and a separate Muslim region. These open initiatives ceased only when the authorities threatened the organizers with criminal charges, but it gave birth to the armed struggle of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). These sentiments continue to linger and I fear that federalism will only encourage ethnic and regional secessionist movements to grow.
The framers of the federal constitution can always say that they have included a specific provision against secession. But not even a constitutional mandate will stand in the way of secessionists determined, rightly or wrongly, to assert their identity. One cannot stop secession with a constitutional prohibition.