CANDIDATE DU30’s federalism refrain wedded to his crude and brutal street lingo and earthy demeanor resonated among the voters tired of the “same old, same old.” Except for the imprecise but romantic idea of “freeing the periphery from imperial Manila,” nothing much has filtered down to those who could benefit from it the most—the long-suffering Filipino almost half of whom wallow in poverty. Federalism burst into social media propelled by bloggers, academics, pseudo-experts and plain enthusiasts attempting to fill the gaps between the slogan, its definitions and the pragmatic approaches. And the confusion and cacophony persisted as mainstream media, long perceived to be the bastion of the oligarchy and the entrenched elite, were not that keen, even outrightly antithetical, to a change in the status quo that federalism would provoke.