{"id":188644,"date":"2018-11-07T03:48:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T08:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=188644"},"modified":"2018-11-07T03:48:01","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T08:48:01","slug":"prrds-federalism-task-force-brings-cha-cha-back-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/07\/prrds-federalism-task-force-brings-cha-cha-back-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"PRRD\u2019s federalism task force brings Cha-cha back in focus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cIf you do that, the tendency of the people is to focus more on, ‘Ah, this is my candidate,’ and the issues of political developments of the day rather than the fundamental idea of shifting to a federal system,\u201d Pimentel said. (Photo By Albert Calvelo\/Wikimedia commons, Public Domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Former Senate president Aquilino \u201cNene\u201d Pimentel Jr. on Tuesday described President Rodrigo R. Duterte\u2019s move to create an Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on federalism as a \u201ccalculated\u201d effort to bring talks on federalism and charter change back in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Malaca\u00f1ang released Memorandum Circular No. 52, signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea on Oct. 31 by authority of the President, creating the IATF, which will take charge of \u201cintegrating, harmonizing, and coordinating ongoing efforts towards federalism and constitutional reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pimentel, member of the Consultative Committee (ConCom) tasked to draft the proposed federal charter, noted that the creation of the task force is \u201ctimely\u201d after talks on federalism and charter change were shelved to allow the government to prioritize the country\u2019s most pressing concerns, such as rising inflation and high prices of goods.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering the circumstances, I think it is timely that the President re-advocated the push for the adoption of the federal system. The reason I say that is, there is a growing perception that the federalism idea is being relegated to the background. And, so this act of the President will put to rest that perception,\u201d he said in a television interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many other things that demand the attention of this nation and obviously, the President has to put certain priorities to assuage the people that even if he’s pushing for a long-term plan of revising the Constitution, the present problems of the nation are not forgotten,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Pimentel said the task force is also necessary to \u201cconsolidate\u201d the ConCom\u2019s draft federal charter, as well as other versions of the charter.
\n\u201cThere are many versions of federalism and apparently, in spite of that, there are many other suggestions for this revision,\u201d he said. \u201cI suppose that what he’s trying to do now, we will try to consolidate thing here and come up with a more defined version of federalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pimentel said he finds the House of Representatives\u2019 version of the federal charter as \u201cproblematic,\u201d as it removes the provisions on anti-dynasty and term limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe House of Representatives came out with their own version and I find the version a little problematic in the sense that there is no anti-dynasty provision there and the term limits of officials are not set out very clearly,\u201d Pimentel said.<\/p>\n

He, however, acknowledged that the role of the ConCom is only \u201crecommendatory\u201d and Congress has the final decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand what the House is trying to do but the thing is that our job as a Constitutional Commission is merely recommendatory and when it is recommendatory, the persons to who you recommend do what they want but we have the right to say ‘You also take into account at least some of the major considerations we put in our work,\u2019\u201d Pimentel said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, he pointed out that any attempt to revise the Constitution, including the plebiscite, should not coincide with next year\u2019s mid-term elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do that, the tendency of the people is to focus more on, ‘Ah, this is my candidate,’ and the issues of political developments of the day rather than the fundamental idea of shifting to a federal system,\u201d Pimentel said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Former Senate president Aquilino \u201cNene\u201d Pimentel Jr. on Tuesday described President Rodrigo R. Duterte\u2019s move to create an Inter-Agency …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":188645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188644","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=188644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}