The President from Mindanao

Believe it or not we now have a president from Mindanao. That too is a big step for change. We learned in school that the Philippines is made up of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The three stars in our flag symbolizes the three divisions of our nation but those in Luzon or what is sometimes referred to as the Christian western part that dominates.

I think that is the main reason why Rodrigo Roa Duterte from Mindanao is now President of the Philippines. He was persuaded by former President Fidel Ramos. We have had presidents from Luzon and the Visayas by never from Mindanao. Yet Mindnao is rich in natural resources and endowed with minerals. But because of our unitary presidential system it was subjugated and colonized by Christian Luzon.

Mindanao was Muslim when the Christian colonialists came and encouraged the Christians to migrate develop its resources.

Succeeding presidents from Luzon and the Visayas offered only tokens of political power – a senator, a cabinet member and few members of Congress. You can say that Mindanao was largely marginalized.

I think that is the reason why former Presdent FVR sought Duterte to be a candidate for the highest post of the land. A President from Mindanao would push for parliamentary federalism.

Presidents before him had tried different agreements with Muslim rebel groups but these were eventually rejected as unconstitutional.

I learned about federalism as the ideal political structure in the Philippines in 2005 when a group of Filipino politicians were invited to the Forum of Federations in Brussels, Belgium.

There are more than 25 countries in the world today that have federal systems of government. That means more than 40 percent of the world are governed by a federal system in one form or another. Together they represent 40 percent of the world’s population. These include some of the largest and most complex democracies – India, the USA, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland and Canada. But of these countries the most successful is Switzerland.

Federalism is both a political concept and a system of government. It means different things to different peoples. I began to accept it when federalists explained to me that as a concept it should be understood as freedom. It poses problems when it is defined as a stand alone system of government because it divides countries to ethnic, political or religious groups.

There are also unitary countries – such as Spain, Belgium and South Africa that have adopted federal structures. These maintain a common central government for some purposes while empowering regional governments for other purposes. A federal system of government permits recognition of diversities of language, culture, religion and ethnicity and unity of common interests and purpose.

To know more about Muslim Mindanao I visited Marawi  City. I had a lovely ride on mountain roads on one side and the calm waters of Lake Lanao on the other.

I heard respected members of the Muslim community say “it was here that the advocacy for federalism in the Philippines was born. Yes, he said we are for charter change if it will mean we will be able to live according to our Muslim culture and tenets.

“We are for it 100 percent” they said. The audience then rose to its feet and applauded.

The essence of a federal system of government is simply the division of political power between a central or national authority and smaller, locally autonomous units such as provinces or states under the terms of a constitution. So the concept of a genuinely autonomous Muslim region in the Philippines was not a strange or merely local issue.

The same federal principle is practiced in many countries such as Belgium, Switzerland and Canada or even a regional grouping such as the European Union (minus the UK after an unfortunate referendum recently).

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As promised by Pressident Rodrigo Duterte that he will work for constitutional change his government has now taken the first step towards federalism to see it through.

Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez as Speaker in the House of Representatives, filed his resolution for a constitutional convention to tackle the issue.

His resolution was filed at the bills and index service a few minutes after Duterte took his oath of office as the country’s 16th President.

According to political experts, federalism is emerging as the central ethos of an emerging civilization that recognizes both national and sub-national identities and promotes regional and global frameworks for better understanding, coordination and cooperation. “In this sense, the philosophy of federation is transcending much beyond the system of governance to a way of life and civilization in the new millennium.

The federalists have formed a Forum of Federations.

Brazil hosted the sixth conference in 2013. I do not know if the Philippines was invited to that conference. But I do know that Rody Duterte, as the presidential candidate of the PDP Laban has been encouraged to take up the issue and include the shift to federalism in his program of government.

What it means is that he will work for the Philippines to stay as one country with smaller communities especially in Mindanao that do not have political clout. These local governments have the political clout to govern their communities. At the moment the big stumbling block in the governance of these communities is the power to tax and budget their income for the community’s needs. In what is known as IRA (the internal revenue allotment) the division between the national treasury and the community is 60-40 with 60 going to the national government. When we went around the Philippines talking to local authorities, they said that by the time the IRA is received, only 20 percent is left to spend for the local community.

With this kind of division, it is understandable why the local authorities are unable to support themselves. The unjust division is also one of the reasons why the Muslims would rather secede. So not surprisingly federalism is the best antidote to secession feared by most Filipinos who do not understand the system.

I have heard it said that Rodrigo Duterte is determined to change the Constitution to structure our politics and government to parliamentary government.

In his speech after being proclaimed the standard-bearer of PDP-Laban political party, Duterte said he has no ambition to run for president, but decided to do so when his political party’s leaders urged him to run and push for federalism.

Ironically, the PDP-Laban had spearheaded for federalism for many years and it is only now that it has finally gained ground.

It is time now that we have the first president from Mindanao. Federalism must be introduced to the people of the Philippines as a solution to war that has claimed so many lives.

Then we can say that Lanao is indeed the birthplace of federalism in the Philippines.