Reviving the federalist dream

THE Bayanihan Constitution, proposed by the Committee to Study the 1987 Constitution, constituted by President Rodrigo Duterte and chaired by former Chief Justice Reynato Puno and co-chaired by the late former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., has been consigned to the back burner. It was not a bad proposal. It was rather because it had been pushed by President Digong that spelled its demise, which says a lot about the way we, as a nation, decide things. There was a spirited campaign to discredit the draft, even by those who had not read it, because they saw nothing more than Digong’s hand behind it. That is not to say, of course, that it was beyond improvement. Many parts, especially the transitory provisions had to be rewritten, and if it is to be taken up once more as a serious proposal to Congress, then it must be fine-tuned; probably, totally reworked in some places.

The calamities that scourged the nation of late have made many think of federalism again. Not that anything was seriously the matter with the national government’s response. But, given the geography and the topography of our country, it was unavoidable that the relief, which only the national government could give, took days to arrive and even longer for the hinterlands, rendered virtually inaccessible by rivers that had burst their banks and mountain slopes that made the already narrow roads impassable.