Ex-CJ warns on ‘rushed’ federalism: a ‘lethal experiment’

FILE: Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno speaking at 2007 U.P. Law alumni homecoming (Photo by Anyo Niminus – Own work, Public Domain)

A former Chief Justice warned that a rushed shift from a unitary form of government to a federal government could be a ‘lethal experiment’ especially with political dynasties.

According to former Chief Justice Reynato Puno, political dynasties need to be ‘neutralized’ first before the shift, as they will gain sovereign powers granted by the new Constitution.

“That will be a very lethal experiment,” he said in an interview with ANC. “These states will be given the power to make their laws, execute their laws, interpret their laws, and that should be in the hands of political dynasties.”

Given that the way for the shift is through the amendment or revision of the Constitution, Puno gave two points when it came to the subject.

“Two things when you write a constitution – you shouldn’t write [it] when you are angry, you shouldn’t write [it] when you are in a hurry,” this was Puno’s remark in the same interview.

In the context of federalism as an experiment, he also noted that it could be a failure to divide the country into states hastily.

Current draft models presented propose five regions or 11 regions.

“That is, to me, putting the cart before the horse. Why should you make regions as states when they are not ready for it? That would be an experiment in failure,” he said.

Puno instead suggested an ‘evolving’ type of federalism in which regions would be autonomous first and must strive to meet a certain criteria to be considered as a state.

At the same time, the former Chief Justice also brought up that this evolving federalism could be a way for the eyed Bangsamoro region in the peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“It should not take us a long time to really shift to federalism and at the same time we can already address the problem of our Muslim brothers and sisters,” Puno said