BENEFICIALITY CONSTRUCTIVE SPEECH

I, you, they, we, are all Filipinos. We live in one country and we are united with one
race. To the honorable judges, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, a pleasant morning. I am
Meryshel Gianan and I am the second speaker for the negative side. We firmly believe that it is
beneficial to the Philippines not to shift in Federal form of Government. In term of distribute
power and authority, it might result unequal justice in the federal regions.

Having said the contentions of the affirmative side, there is nothing in the federal form
of government that cannot be done in our current unitary form of government. The Philippines
adapting federalism is revising the Constitution, just like the failed attempt of the then
proposed Joint Resolution No. 10 which might have required the revision of 14 of the 18
Articles of the 1987 Constitution.

First, if we will take an in depth cost-benefit analysis of this, it is more of a cost than a
benefit. Contrary to the major contention of the affirmative side that the very essence of
federalism is to ensure that growth and prosperity are spread to every part of the Philippines,
not just in Manila is a fallacy. Federalism allows the benefits and costs of government to be
spread unevenly. It creates disadvantages in poorer states and communities. Furthermore,
there will be overlapping work, redundancy and confusion.

Second, it is a fact that the Philippines is a diverse country. Each has its own capacities
to earn, as well has its own necessities thus resulting to uneven generated income making
federalism unfavorable to non-prime states. In Federalism, it allows the state to generate their
own income. According to the draft constitution Bayanihan Federalism Article XII Sec. 2, within
regional territory, the federal region shall have executive power over creation of sources of
revenue and financial administration and management. The proposed government is only
beneficial to prime states that generate a higher rate of income from different sources. Poor
states cannot stand longer in this kind of government because it has lower income generation
to support its need. According to Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (2018), the
article entitled Stats on the state of the regions: Hubs of Wealth , ponds of poverty, there are
eight provinces with the highest poverty incident, included here is Lanao del Sur in the region of
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The said region experience a two decade of
self-rule yet still remains as among the poorest and most unstable region in the Philippines. This
only shows that greater political autonomy is not a guarantee of dynamic, stable, and
prosperous self-governing state that federalism promotes. This situation of the ARMM can be
considered as a good example on how a regional government part ways with the national
government (Heydarian, 2018).
 Third, power and authority of the states to create their own law different from the
national laws and policies will bring confusion to the citizen. For a Federal form of government,
it has numerous state and in every federal state there are different laws and policies. This is the
only city in the Philippines that prohibit both man riding a motorcycle. In developing countries
like India, Iraq and Nigeria, federalism has either failed to close developmental gaps and ethno-
communal tensions among various states (Heydarian, 2018). Philippines is one of those
developing countries, the federalist type of government is not far to fail if the said type of
government was fully amended. According to the article entitled “Change is or Change
Scamming: Duterte’s Federalist Initiatives on the Philippine Government” (Fiestada et al. 2018) .
As Attorney Lina (2018) says, former senator and former governor of Laguna, “Federalism is
already in 1987 Constitution.” Provision in the said constitution promote the decentralization
that federalism wish to solve, specifically the general welfare clause in Section 16 which states:
“Every local government unit shall exercise the powers expressly granted, those necessarily
implied therefrom, as well as powers necessary, appropriate, or incidental for its efficient and
effective governance, and those which are essential to the promotion of the general welfare.”
Separating the functions of the national government and the regional government will result to
duplicity of functions. The bureaucracy will expand. The very nature of federalism necessitates
more bureaucrats in both the national and regional levels. More bureaucrats mean more
bureaucracy. This can lead to inefficiency and corruption.

Amendment and full implementation of Local Government Code of 1991 is not

expensive rather than revising of whole constitution. According to Bernardo M. Villegas, an
economist, the said code is already giving local government the power to “implement
infrastructure developments and manage internal-revenue allotments”. Also, the said code is
under Article 10, Section 5, “local government units are given the power to create its own
sources of revenues and to levy taxes, fees and charges subject to such guidelines and
limitations as Congress may provide, as well as to levy taxes, charges and fees” (Gabriel, 2016).
In addition to this, Attorney Christian Monsod said the “constitution allows provinces to
convene voluntarily and autonomously pull their resources and push for change in the Local
Government Code on the equitable division of the internal revenue allotment” (Billiones, 2016).

We do not need a change of government. All we need is to strengthen the centralized

government. If there are issues like in the budget, the current system can promulgate a
different regulation to address the issue. Of course we will not restructure the entire house if
only the glass of the window is broken. And to end of it all, we are in one nation, like in a family.
We should help each other hand in hand to enrich and improve each individual.

I have now presented my points and I would like to thank you all for listening intently.
 In contrary to the possible benefits of federal system, it also bears disadvantages so to
consider as challenges that should clearly studied in order to come up with an effective solution.
As discussed in a paper titled “Federalism and Inclusion in Developing Economies” by Fabella &
Daway-Ducanes (2018) that depicts on the negative part of Federalism in accordance to
empirical research and statistical evidence in which contradicts the idea that Federalism will
lower the poverty rate and income alleviation on basis of the regression bar. Although the pro-
federalism claims expressed the effects of federalism in reducing poverty and equal distribution
of income, the researchers clearly elaborated that federalism will not lower the incidence of
poverty and severity in average level countries and concluded that it can cause higher level of
poverty incidences in developing economies, since Philippines is one of the developing
economies, the findings of the researchers on shift in federalism is that Federalism will fail that
it can bring greater income inequality.

According to Heydarian (2018) on his article titled “Does Federalism Make Sense For the
Philippines”, expressed some concerns on the negative impact of Federalism. First, Federalism
has failed to close the developmental gaps in countries like India, Iraq and Nigeria. Some states
were not ready and not capable of generating their own taxes and at the same time, the richer
countries will be more richer in having many of their resources which results to deepening gap
with other regions citing the example of US in its rich coastal states of California and New York
and southern and Midwestern states on its developmental gap. He also provides that on a
paper, federalism is so good while in reality it will just worsen the already diversified in
language, culture and religion.

A genocidal civil was also seen in Yugoslavia in having a federal setup. On the other
hand, political dynasties will be more prominent and have more power providing that as
Heydarian argued in accordance to academic studies that “around 178 so-called political
dynasties” that refers to “control 73 out of 81 provinces across the country” and the possibility
of controlling the restrictions on the promotion of political dynasties were seen since 70% of
Legislature is controlled by them and these political dynasties will just dominate the local
legislature. And the professor added that enormous number of Filipinos according to the surveys
are not in favor of constitutional change and do not know the implications underlying in it.

According to Mendoza (2016), Federalism will make more worsen and fragmented the
already diversified regions of the Philippines. The ex-justice also noted that there is no problem
in unitary form of government. The struggle is that the real essence of allowing local
government to exercise its functions is not fully realized that always favours the national
government like the 60-40 mechanism. What is needed is not federalism but of empowered
decentralization. The ten-year period in the transition of federal system is not realistic since
there is also a need to train public officials for policy making in order to make them independent
that which will take more time than to what is expected.