Federalism (ganda ko)

“The time for Federalism has come to our country.” President Rodrigo Roa Duterte stated last
year, June 06 on a speech he delivered during the 2018 Eid’l Fitr Celebration.

The Philippines’ form of government was not one of those topics that are always talked about
and considered a problem by the previous administrations. Well, at least not after the change from the
Parliamentary form of government imposed by former President Marcos to the imposition of the
Democratic form of government by the late President Cory Aquino. But just for the past year during the
current administration it has again become a well debated topic in the Philippines. It has been brought
to light when President Rodrigo Duterte expressed his objective in changing the country's form of
government under a new constitution. The move has triggered a backlash among certain sections of
society, ranging from the business sector to the church and media, which have questioned the rationale
for constitutional change.

In the present the Philippine government has a unitary form of government which means that
the power and authority is mostly vested in one centralized government. One aspect for this is that
income and funds made by each region would all go to that national government and from there, budget
is distributed back to each regions in the basis of the amount the government has set to each one of
them.

On the other hand in Federalism, the power will be divided between the National Government
and the Local State Government which would happen by dividing the country into different states.
Income and funds of each state will be divided into 3 segments, 20% for the Federal National
Government and 80% for the said Local Government which will again be divided into 2 parts, 30% for the
Local State Government and 70% would go to the provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays.
Federal Government will be the one responsible for the military and protection for the nation and the
Local State Government would be responsible for their respective states, where each of them has more
controls over their own projects, budgets and laws.

We put ourselves to agree with federalism for many boundless reasons. The Philippines is an
archipelago with 7,641 islands, each with diverse tribes and cultures and clearly each region has their
own specific needs. In cases of emergency like typhoons and earthquakes that happens often to our
country that the government repetitively failed to respond quickly since the facilities, technology and
funding is mainly focused in where the centralized government is located.

The unitary form of government has failed the Filipinos many times. Graft and corruption is not a
new word for Filipinos to hear in the news as if it’s our culture. By shifting from a unitary form of
government to federal type of government we believe that we can achieve economic reforms, equal
justice, and progress to each state. Federalism will also eliminate the decongested Metro Manila by
distributing development across the nation. By this government Filipinos can develop their selves by
looking at their state and ask themselves what is wrong and what could they do to achieve the success.

Others say that Federalism will make the Philippine more diverse but for us a friendly
competition is okay but because of these competitions as a whole Philippines will be as great as America.
Pretty much our current form of government has taken a toll on how our country is doing right now. We
may not see it as it really is but maybe the democracy given on our part after the administration of
Marcos, has been vaguely abused. We are too excited to grasp the concept of freedom that we forgot its
real essence thus causing a problem in our country in the long run.

The changing of the form of government in the Philippines would be a great new fresh breath of air for
us Filipinos. It would be like our reset, on trying to correct what has been wrongly done for the past
years. The federal form of government would best fit the country as of the moment. It would implement
the rule what we give is what we receive. Those rich provinces will receive the amount that is fair for
them and those classified as poor provinces will strive harder for them to attain a higher amount of
revenue in order for them to get a higher amount of budget.

The downside of this is that those so called poor provinces will probably get less resources than what
they are getting now meaning they have less chances of prospering.