{"id":151460,"date":"2018-02-06T21:26:34","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T02:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=151460"},"modified":"2018-02-06T21:26:34","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T02:26:34","slug":"alvarez-federalism-can-solve-regional-disparities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/06\/alvarez-federalism-can-solve-regional-disparities\/","title":{"rendered":"Alvarez: Federalism can solve regional disparities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (PPD\/Toto Lozano)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2014<\/strong>\u00a0House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Tuesday assured that the regional development gap in the country could be narrowed under a federal setup with the rich regions aiding poor regions until they become competitive.<\/p>\n

Alvarez made this remark in response to concerns that poor regions who were heavily dependent on the national government “might lag behind” under a federal form of government.<\/p>\n

According to a Department of Finance report presented during a House constitutional amendments committee hearing, 11 out of the country’s 14 regions are heavily dependent on their Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).<\/p>\n

Alvarez said wealthier regions and economically distressed regions could be clustered together as a state.<\/p>\n

“May formula kasi doon, yung mga regions na talagang mahirap pwede natin ‘yang isama doon sa region ng mayaman para kaya silang buhatin nu’ng region na yun<\/em>\u00a0(There’s a formula for that. The poorer regions could be grouped with wealthier regions that could help lift them up),” Alvarez said in an ambush interview.<\/p>\n

“Tulungan lang (We just help each other out),” he added.<\/p>\n

Alvarez also raised the proposal of creating a “special equalization fund” by the federal government, in which the high-earning states subsidize the poor ones.<\/p>\n

“Sa ibang bansa like Malaysia, may tinatawag silang special equalization fund para doon sa halimbawa nahihirapan yung isang region sinu-subsidize nila hanggang makabangon talaga<\/em>\u00a0(In other countries like Malaysia, they have a special equalization fund to aid troubled regions through subsidy until they could stand on their own),” Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

Under the federal system, Alvarez said the states would get 80 to 85 percent of their revenues while the remaining would be remitted to the national government.<\/p>\n

“Tingin ko wala nang IRA yan, dahil 80-85 percent nung income mo maiiwan na sa iyo. Sobra-sobra na yung kung i-compute mo sa IRA mo yan, ‘di ba?<\/em>\u00a0(I think the IRA would be scrapped. 80-85 percent of your income is yours. That’s more than the IRA you receive, right?),” Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

Alvarez added that the development potential of the country’s regions would “unravel” under a federal system.<\/p>\n

“Nakikita ko, every region in this country may mga potential, ang laki<\/em>\u00a0(I can see that every region in this country has a huge potential),” he said.<\/p>\n

Alvarez said federalism would allow the regions to flourish using their strategic advantages in natural resources.<\/p>\n

Alvarez added that the system would further create job opportunities and allow the regions to manage their own economy and to chart their own destiny, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2014\u00a0House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Tuesday assured that the regional development gap in the country could be narrowed under …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":147970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[46007,15123],"class_list":["post-151460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","tag-federalism-can-solve-regional-disparities","tag-house-speaker-pantaleon-alvarez","mauthors-filane-mikee-cervantes","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}