Federalism, Plan B

The thick book on constitutional reforms, gathering dust on my bookshelf since the report was submitted in 1999 by a preparatory commission to then president Joseph Estrada, is now joined by a much thinner draft Constitution.

This latest one was prepared by the consultative committee or Concom, which President Duterte created to draft a federal charter.

Duterte never officially transmitted the Concom’s finished product to Congress. Maybe he thought it was enough that the Concom also furnished the House of Representatives with a copy, shortly before his State of the Nation Address last year. Or maybe he got distracted by the power struggle in the HOR, which ended with the ouster of Pantaleon Alvarez as speaker and replacement by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The Arroyo-led HOR gave the draft charter a perfunctory glance, and then promptly got to work on its own version, removing the anti-dynasty provision and relegating federalism to an option. Not surprisingly, this version was overwhelmingly ratified by the HOR.

And not surprisingly, Duterte, who made federalism one of his campaign platforms, seems to have put his advocacy on the back burner. Especially now that the BARMM or Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao – barring an adverse Supreme Court ruling – is on the way to being established.

Without federalism, Duterte has often said, the conflict in Mindanao would never end. With the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) ratified, he should hope his words won’t prove prophetic.

Moro National Liberation Front founding chairman Nur Misuari doesn’t want the ARMM, which he once governed, abolished, and he didn’t support the BOL. Misuari’s bailiwick of Sulu, a significant part of the ARMM, rejected the BOL, and is now grappling with armed violence. Cotabato City, seat of the ARMM but which always voted to stay out of the region, looks polarized by the result of the BOL plebiscite in the city, with local officials leading those who are claiming fraud.

There’s no more hope for federalism through Charter change in the current Congress. The HOR draft Charter, as several senators warned, was DOA, dead on arrival in their chamber. But the push for federalism is not yet dead.

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There are at least 10 candidates seeking a Senate seat on a federalism platform. One of them, former Concom spokesman Conrado “Ding” Generoso, faced The Chiefs this week on One News / Cignal TV.

After seeing the product of their months of labor unceremoniously tossed out by the HOR, Concom members met with Duterte in August last year, in hopes of getting some guidance on what to do next. But they got no hint from the President.

Generoso told us that federalism proponents are now considering Plan B – a people’s initiative to amend the Constitution for a shift to federalism.

This has been tried twice before, under Fidel Ramos and GMA. Both ended in the scrap heap amid suspicions that the efforts were meant chiefly to allow the president to stay in power beyond the single six-year term limit.

In the case of the signature campaign for a people’s initiative during GMA’s presidency, her defense secretary and former chief legal counsel Avelino Cruz described the rushed effort as “a legally harebrained idea.” Nonong Cruz then resigned.

Ding Generoso told us that the current push for a people’s initiative would avoid the weaknesses of the previous efforts. He said it would also exclude certain personalities who gave the past initiatives a bad name.

The original idea, he said, was to launch the people’s initiative alongside the campaign for Senate seats of the 12 candidates (down to 10 after two were disqualified) of his party, the Katipunan ng Kamalayang Kayumanggi. Realizing that this could prove complicated, however, he said they have adjusted their timeline, with the launch envisioned after the May elections, or when the next Congress has convened.

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One achievement of the Concom is that it stimulated public discussion on some of the provisions in the draft Charter, notably the lifting of term limits if an anti-dynasty provision is approved.

Federalism and Cha-cha, however, aren’t the only advocacies of Generoso in case he is elected.

Another proposal, which should resonate in this campaign period, is the creation of a common fund to which every taxpayer can contribute voluntarily.

Jose de Venecia, when he was House speaker, had made a similar proposal, drawing from practices in other countries. But the common reaction was why taxpayers should bankroll the election campaigns of greedy thieves and incompetent clowns. Aren’t ordinary people burdened enough?

Perhaps some tweaking and different endorsers would make the idea more palatable. Generoso says the common campaign fund can be drawn from taxes collected from personal and corporate income.

During tax payment time, a taxpayer can indicate if he wants a portion of his payment to go to the fund, which as the name implies would not go to any specific candidate or party.

A multisectoral body would be set up to supervise the fund, for equitable allocation during campaign season as well as transparency in donations and expenditures.

If a major company or organization or one of the country’s wealthiest individuals wants to support a specific candidate or political party, the amount must not be more than 10 percent of any amount that the donor will be required to contribute to the common campaign fund.

This, Generoso says, will reduce candidates’ political debts to any individual or interest group. Such debts are usually repaid through sweetheart deals endorsed or directly approved by the winning candidate, or through appointments to government positions even for those lacking qualifications.

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Repaying campaign support is one of the principal sources of corruption and inefficiency in government. Logically, reforming the system would enjoy widespread support.

This, of course, is not logical for our politicians.

Only a naïf leaves a paper trail for campaign donations. Campaign contributions can be a source of enormous personal wealth, and the donations evade the radar of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It’s no joke that there are people in this country who seek elective office “for the fund of it.”

Campaign financing is a black hole for the anti-money laundering police. Opaque or non-existent rules allow even drug dealers, smugglers, kidnappers, jueteng lords and other gangsters to finance election campaigns with dirty money.

The proposal of Generoso and his fellow federalists on the common campaign fund appears dead in the water. Still, this campaign season is an opportunity to present the idea to voters and allow it to germinate.

It’s like the movement for federalism: proponents never say die.