{"id":181117,"date":"2018-09-11T22:53:20","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T02:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=181117"},"modified":"2018-09-11T22:53:20","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T02:53:20","slug":"federalism-wont-ensure-immediate-prosperity-beneficial-ph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/09\/11\/federalism-wont-ensure-immediate-prosperity-beneficial-ph\/","title":{"rendered":"Federalism won\u2019t ensure immediate prosperity but beneficial to PH"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte talks to the members of his cabinet following the dialogue with Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo at the Malaca\u00f1an Palace on September 11, 2018. KARL NORMAN ALONZO\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Tuesday admitted that he could not convince everyone to support his push for federalism but noted that this new system of government will benefit the entire country through its wealth and power sharing feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a time for everything. I\u2019ve been going around. I suppose you cannot convince everybody at one time that federalism is good for the country,\u201d Duterte said in a televised interview on state-run PTV at the Malaca\u00f1ang Palace.<\/p>\n

Duterte said federalism might not assure improved economic condition right away, but believes there is a chance it would spread the country\u2019s wealth and resources evenly among the regions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might help, it cannot guarantee prosperity\u00a0kaagad<\/em>\u00a0(immediately) but it might help distribute the wealth of the nation among the local units,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He said federalism is \u201cgaining ground\u201d in the provinces because they have always been lagging behind Metro Manila and other urban areas in terms of development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the provinces, it\u2019s gaining ground\u00a0kasi<\/em>\u00a0(because) historically,\u00a0ang Maynila talaga yung pinaka maganda kasi binubuhos yung pera dito<\/em>\u00a0(Manila is doing well since it\u2019s where most of the money goes) because it\u2019s the capital region,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

He, however, said he wanted political and economic power distributed to empower local governments to help themselves by implementing their own measures to alleviate poverty.<\/p>\n

Duterte said since he was elected as President, he might as well exhaust all his powers to push for the amendment of the 1987 Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cTutal presidente naman ako, e di lahat na<\/em>\u00a0(Since I\u2019m already the President, why don\u2019t we go all out),\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

On July 9, Duterte received the proposed federal Charter drafted by his 22-member Consultative Committee (ConCom) to review the 1987 Constitution chaired by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno.<\/p>\n

Puno described the proposed Charter as one that \u201cestablishes federated regions that are socially, economically and politically viable and sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe divided the powers of government guided by the Filipino spirit of bayanihan where both the federal government and the federated regions govern the people less in competition but more in cooperation with one another and aligned with the maxim: the welfare of the people is the supreme law,\u201d Puno said.<\/p>\n

Under the draft federal Constitution, there are 18 federated regions composed of 16 symmetrical regions– existing regions plus Negrosanon Federated Region and two asymmetrical regions \u2013 Bangsamoro and Cordillera.<\/p>\n

Bangasamoro and Cordillera have different designs from other regions because of their \u201cidentity-based demands,\u201d said Ding Genroso, ConCom senior technical assistant and spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Last month, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the proposed Federal Charter is now open for comments from the public.<\/p>\n

Roque said the ConCom\u2019s proposal as \u201ca very good draft\u201d but noted that both the government and ConCom are considering comments from all stakeholders to help improve the proposal.<\/p>\n

Duterte will consider people\u2019s comments before officially transmitting the proposed federal Constitution to Congress, Roque said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the President was fully satisfied and has fully endorsed the whole product of the Consultative Committee, of course, as part of the public discourse, we\u2019re open to remarks and feedback from the general public,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Tuesday admitted that he could not convince everyone to support his push for federalism …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":181125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181117","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}