After watching Crazy Rich Asians, my Elsbeth Tascioni-ish brain had me thinking about the Young family who are not only ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans, but may have also been technically subjects of the British throne or Malaysians if the ancestors of Nick Young came to Singapore before 1965. Why does it matter? Well, because technicality is as important in social sciences as it is in math and natural science.
Let us cut to the chase. Shall we?
The change from unitary into a federal form of government is a big issue in the Philippines – and one that is totally misunderstood by many ordinary folks from opposing sides of the political fences. Even professionals do not fully understand the concept of the unitary and federal government types. Multimedia personalities who do and do not have credentials have given their thoughts about the federalism thrust of the Duterte administration that challenges the unitary form of government. But, I do not think that anybody has given much emphasis on the Philippines being a textbook federacy since Marcos time.
While there is no standard to test the success of political scientists, it is sure that governance is harder to execute because there is no clear cut formula in theory and practice, especially for types of government. While we would like to believe that we are a unitary centralized democracy, our status quo is not a clear cut unitary state for we have, for the longest time, Cordillera and Bangsamoro. The 1987 Constitution even solidified the Philippines as a federacy when it stipulated in Article X the autonomy of these regions.
It is an issue of verbiage too. The framers should have consulted a linguist. We have considered probinsya as an equivalent to lalawigan when the latter has no exact transliteration in the Western concept. Even a lalawigan should conceptually be able to equate the ‘state’ used in the “State of California” or “State of Johor”, but not as the ‘state’ that refers to the supreme polity of the “State of Japan” which is Japan’s official name. However, “bayan” could mean both country (e.g. Ang bayan kong Pilipinas) and a municipal entity that is not a ‘lungsod’ (e.g. Bayan ng Pateros).
Cordillera and Bangsamoro are called “regions”; and that case adds to the confusion for ordinary folks because we have other 15 regular regions that are not autonomous, which includes the National Capital Region. But then, in NCR, we have the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (descendant to Ferdinand Marcos’ Metropolitan Manila Commission) which is sort of an answer to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of the provinces. Imelda Marcos was even the first Governor of Manila.
Isn’t it all overlapping and crazy? So, what’s the point?
A shift to federalism is not necessary because, aside from budget constraints and the expected gerrymandering and further proliferation of political dynasties, our system right now is not even a perfect unitary state but a flexible hybrid type of presidential democracy with a central government that recognizes the higher level of autonomy of some of its units – regions, provinces, component cities, independent cities and municipality. In short, the Philippines is a federacy. It has characteristics of both the unitary and federal types of governments. It is a model devised unwittingly by tradition, empowered by previous leaderships, and solidified by the current Constitution. If in this setup our politicians cannot serve us well, what more can they do in a federal parliamentary type?
Another point to discuss is the issue of sovereignty. The key here is maintaining the sovereignty of the Republic of the Philippines as it gives more autonomy on local units.
China is also a federacy with some of its regions having more autonomy than some of its units – Macau, Hong Kong, and the country Tibet are under the sovereign state of the People’s Republic of China. The four countries England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland form together the sovereign state of the United Kingdom. The forty-six states, four commonwealths, one district form the sovereignty of the United States. And while the United States has sovereignty, it recognizes the sovereignty of its tribal nations within its geographical jurisdiction. Within the US mainland exists the Cherokee and Navajo nations which are tribal regions considered as domestic dependent nations.
It might sound ineffective, but this, I believe, is a way around: amend the Local Government Code, and fortify the powers and the budget of the core of Philippine governance – the barangay.
The law is all for empowering the barangay, but the practice is the opposite. (Please, do not equate barangay into a village because there could be a lot of villages in a barangay.) Give barangay its appropriate stature as the smallest unit of Philippine government, which if paralleled to the State of California, is almost equivalent to a city. If the budget goes to the barangay, where more people are more acquainted with each other and where people are at a better vantage point to support and critic the leaders, the sense of community is more adamant and the flow of services will run much better compared to when a leader sits highly in a bulwagan miles away from the community. If we strengthen the barangay more, and truly promote a culture of accountability for public officials instead of treating them as gods and idols, the issue of whether the Philippines should be this or that type of government would not even surface, because it is clear to us that we are governed well. The barangays will become the glue that sticks different polities of one sovereign state together wherever our country leans on the spectrum of government types.
These cases only show that there is no clear cut formula on polities, only a clear hunger of politicians for power.
No wonder Lee Kwan Yew opted out of Malaysia and decided that Singapore will assert sovereignty. It is interesting that Singaporean Nick Young was played by a Malaysian-British.
fernandezjrp 