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There is something odd about the numbers presented by Pulse Asia in its latest survey.

The survey reports that only 18 percent favors Charter change. However, 28 percent favors a shift to federalism. About 10 percent of respondents do not seem to realize that Charter change is a precondition to a shift to a federal arrangement.

About 69 percent of respondents admitted little or no awareness about what federalism is. That might be an understatement. Many of those who advocate federalism do not understand what it is exactly.

That only two in 10 Filipinos are currently disposed to undertaking constitutional renovation might seem an intimidating ratio. But it is not an unfamiliar condition. Every attempt to introduce change faces daunting odds. People, by nature, fear the unknown and compulsively embrace the familiar.

All previous attempts at Charter change faced the same odds. But all previous attempts at Charter change began with some form of grassroots engagement, such as signature campaigns, to get citizens engaged in the process.

Something as large, as complex and as profound as reforming the constitutional order has to start as a genuine political movement. Otherwise, it courts failure.

The PIRMA people’s initiative during the Ramos years was stopped when former president Corazon Aquino and Cardinal Jaime Sin joined forces to call out a conservative counter-movement. Its fate was sealed when the court upheld petitions to invalidate the signature campaign. But PIRMA, until it was judicially terminated, did manage to provoke discussion at the grassroots about the need for constitutional reform.

I participated in the PIRMA initiative, interested mainly in seeing a shift to a parliamentary form of government. Such a shift would alter the dynamic of our politics and cure the evils of oligarchy, a weak political party system and popularity driven elections.

Advocates of federalism commandeered the present effort at reforming the constitutional order. They see that as the more feasible method for all that ails our politics. In the process, they dropped the shift to a parliamentary form from the agenda. I beg to disagree.

This is not, I suppose, the moment to debate the merits of the parliamentary form. There is no demand for it. There is no political basis for putting that on the national reform agenda. Our only historical memory of the parliamentary form was when, in its emasculated form, it was used as an ornament for dictatorship.

What is on the agenda is federalism. There seems to be some constituency for it, however small. It is attractive for people who think all that matters to cure the disparities among the regions is to secure for them an ample share of revenues. They set aside the question about the institutional capacities of local governments to shape inclusive and sustainable economic development.

By proposing a shift from a unitary to a federal government set-up, the federalists seem to be declaring the nation-state project a failure. Achieving a strong unitary nation-state has long been held to be the goal of developing societies. It was the instrument for setting a common agenda for a people. It was held to be the means for building national solidarity and a sense of common destiny.

Not anymore, it seems. The federalists now want us to pin our hopes for national development on subnational apparatuses of rule. In our case, there is no historical evidence to support this expectation. There is absolutely no evidence, for want of historical experience, to argue that subnational entities can be better at doing the job once assigned to unitary nation-states.

It is true that the nation is an imagined community. Its parameters are defined by what was politically possible given a set of historical circumstances. Its substance composed of national myths and national symbols people choose to abide by. In our case, these are the personalities, images and words associated with the anti-colonial struggle.

There might not be enough myth or enough symbols, however, to properly legitimize subnational communities as the replacement for the idea of nation. The proposed “estados” were never collectively imagined. Now they will imposed from above and in a process more arbitrary than participative.

Federalism remains an opaque idea. But there are certain elements of this idea we can be sure of.

Federalism, to be sure, will magnify the bureaucracy. It will add layers of decision-making (or paralysis) between the smallest political unit and the national institutions.

Federalism will enlarge the political class. We will have 16 subnational assemblies capable of adding even more incoherence to our policies.

Federalism will make government cost more. That will take away resources from building new infra or providing more social services. Spending on labor-intensive government does not seem the best way to reduce poverty.

When the Local Government Code was enacted in 1991, we ended up with a far larger bureaucracy. That will be nothing compared to the bureaucratic enlargement we will be experiencing with federalism.

What does the political leadership intend to do with the adverse opinion numbers?

The presidential spokesman says there will be a massive education campaign to explain the federalism to the man on the street. That can be the only answer, of course.

But how do we sell an opaque idea to a skeptical public?

The federalism project asks our citizens to step into a dark and flooded cave. We do not know where it will lead to – or perchance what might it take to rescue us when we are lost inside.