Palace to educate Filipinos on federalism amid low approval rate
MANILA, Philippines — Admitting that there is little awareness for the proposed shift to a federal form of government, Malacañang vowed to exert more effort in educating and informing Filipinos about the proposal.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that the government has much work to be done to spread awareness and knowledge on federalism.
"We will therefore exert even more effort to inform and educate our citizens about federalism since the approval of the proposed changes in our current Charter ultimately lies in the hands of the Filipino people," Roque said in a statement.
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The latest Pulse Asia survey showed that 67 percent of Filipinos do not want to amend the 1987 Constitution at this time. Only 18 percent of the respondents said that they are in favor of Charter change.
The poll also showed that 69 percent of Filipinos have little to no knowledge of the proposed federal system of government.
"For this reason, we cannot expect our people to support an initiative, which they know only little about," Roque said.
Roque also pointed out that only 55 percent of the respondents have heard, read or watched anything about proposals to amend the 1987 Constitution before the survey was conducted from June 15 to 21.
This, despite the shift to federalism being among the major talking points and promises of the Duterte campaign for the 2016 elections.
A few weeks ago, the consultative committee (Con-Com) tasked to review the 1987 Constitution submitted a draft federal constitution to President Rodrigo Duterte.
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The president, however, asked the committee to revise the transitory provisions, which assigns him as head of the Federal Transititon Commission.
Under the draft charter, Duterte will serve as head of the transition committee until 2022. The president insisted that he wants to step down by 2019 when the country goes into transition.
The draft federal constitution had also been submitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Under the 1987 Constitution, the Congress is mandated to propose constitutional revisions, making lawmakers free to adopt certain provisions from the ConCom or introduce their own amendments.
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