Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Federalism is just a smokescreen


The expressed reasons given by Duterte and his people are pushing for federalism is to give greater autonomy to the regions so that they can have a fair share for funds and resources for their own development. They claim that there is much poverty in the countryside because imperial Manila has taken the lion’s share of the countries resources. Duterte then presents himself as the hero fighting for the decentralization of power and resources. Is this true?
From the actuations, the speeches, and the programs of the man we, however, do not see this. In fact he destroys the independence of other institutions in the government so that he can do what he wants without any opposition. He is one who wants to centralize power and who cannot take any criticism for his actions. He does not want any accountability. So he has taken over the Lower House, which is now just a stamping pad of the Executive. He wants to destroy the Judiciary because it stands in his way to do what he wants. Thus all the machinations to do away with the Chief Justice Sereno! He has issues with the Ombudsman because it wants to investigate him. He and his cohorts have trained his guns against the Commissioner on Human Rights because he asks a lot of questions and questions the human rights violations of his police. Now he is gunning against the International Criminal Court for its preliminary investigations against him. He is hurrying up to change the constitutions – not really to promote federalism - but to concentrate more power on the presidency as seen in the proposed resolutions for the Cha Cha. Do we have a man here who wants to devolve and decentralize power? Federalism is just a ruse to have the constitutions changed so as to have more power and to perpetuate himself and his family in power. He claims to fight corruption but he never speaks about political dynasty which is a major cause of corruption in country. Naturally he do not and cannot speak against the evil of political dynasties because he belongs to one. His administrations and his people in congress will never do away with political dynasties. It will further entrench it with the new constitutions they are proposing.
As for the claim that imperial Manila is getting all the resources of the country – how come he does not chance this when he is now in the position to do this even without federalism? He has the power to make the budget to favor the Visayas and Mindanao. But he does not do it. In fact his administration has increased the expenditures for Luzon and the NCR, rather than diminish it. Action speaks louder than words! Let the figures speak:
Duterte gives less regional allocations to Visayas and Mindanao in his budget
                                  2016                                                     2017                           2018 (Proposed)                                              
NCR                          P445 (14%)                                     P536 (16%)                           P897 (23%)
Luzon                        P628 (20%)                                     P718 (21%)                           P769 (20%)
Vis                             P298 (9.9%)                                    P328 (9.8%)                          P360 (9.6%)
Minda                        P396 (13%)                                      P416 (12%)                          P470 (12%)
Source: Govt Budget Administration (PAGBA)

Imperial Manila’s budget is greater in the time of Duterte!
                                           AQUINO                             DUTERTE
                                          2016                                      2018
NCR SHARE                    (14.8%)                                 (23.9%)                                    
VISAYAS                          (9.9 %)                                  (9.6%)
MINDANAO                     (13.2%)                                 (12.5%)
Source: PAGBA Report

NCR has bigger per capita share in Duterte’s budget
                                            2018 Budget                         Per Capita
       NCR                            817.95 B                                P63,000/person
       VISAYAS                    412.9 B                                  P22,291/person *
       MINDANAO               608.4 B                                 P25,499/person*
* approximate Average per capita
*Source: DBM 2018 Budget file:///C:/Users/nc2017/AppData/Local/Temp/2018-People's-Budget-for-posting.pdf


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