Part 2
Most federated nations came out of the conjoining into a whole of previously unintegrated states, countries or principalities. The nearest to the country is the Federation of Malaysia, where several colonies of the British Empire, sultanates mostly, were joined together after the British gave them independence.
Of particular note are the states of Sabah, which is legally part of the Sultanate of Sulu even if Malaysia has annexed it into the federation, and Singapore, which declared its independence shortly after Malaysia was proclaimed.
The Philippines is a different case, for our sultanates, or kingdoms if you may, existed before the Spanish colonizers came with sword and the cross, and conquered the disparate kingdoms under the name of King Philip. The name of our country is in fact symbolic of that forced unitarianism. The Tagalogs, the Ilocanos, Pampangos, Warays, Bisaya, Hiligaynons, Manobos, Bagobos, Igorots, Kankana-ey, Ibanags, Kalingas, Tausugs, Maranaws, Iranon, Magindanaw, Sama, Yakan, all these disparate tribal kingdoms were subsumed into “Filipinas.”
Our forebears spoke as many as a hundred languages and dialects. Spain taught us to speak Castillian, though not as successfully as most countries in Latin America embraced the language. The “natives” still retained their ethno-lingusitic cultures and languages as primary means of communication among themselves.
The Americans maintained the unitary system because it was perfectly suited to colonial control. They brought in teachers to teach us English, and soon, our people forgot their Castillian and spoke the newly taught language.
But the Commonwealth president, Manuel Luis Quezon, decreed that Tagalog would be the basis of a national language, and through his time and successive presidents of several republics thereafter, more and more Filipinos became conversant in Tagalog.
If we shift to a federal system, how shall we divide this imposed unitary system which has fostered not only division along cultural and religious lines, but worse, engendered an unequal distribution of the national wealth?
If we pattern the division along ethno-linguistic differences, the closest we would have is the administrative regional set-up we presently have, which began during the martial-law era: Regions 1, 2, CAR, 3 (Central Luzon), 4-A and 4-B (to separate the island provinces from mainland Southern Tagalog, 5 (Bicol), 6, which the Aquino administration carved out to a new Negros Island Region, 7 which is Central Visayas, 8 for Eastern Visayas, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and the ARMM for Mindanao, plus the National Capital Region.
But the configuration again will not satisfy ethno-linguistic differences. For instance, Pangasinan, which is largely Ilocano-speaking, with a significant Pangasinense-speaking minority, may opt to be separate, or join the Ilocano “state” further North. Or how would one treat Region 8, where half speak Cebuano-Bisaya, and the other half of the population are Warays? Or Negros Oriental, which is Cebuano-speaking, along with a significant number of Negros Occidental towns where residents do not speak Hiligaynon?
My submission is that it may be better to address the subdivision by economic resources, thus: NCR as a special administrative region; all provinces and cities north of NCR as another; the Cordillera provinces as a separate region or state; those south of NCR but part of Luzon as another. Consolidate all of the Visayas under on state. Consolidate all of Mindanao into one, carving out two Muslim states, one for the mainland (Maranaw, Magindanaw, Iranon), and one for the islands (Tausug, Yakan, Sama, Badjaos, etc.).
Many will disagree with this. Many will insist on division by way of at the very least, the present administrative regional set-up.
But my argument is simple: how will they manage autonomously with paltry resources? Precisely because the imposed unitary structure has created disparities in wealth among these presently-constituted administrative regions, some have huge concentrations of wealth and opportunities; others have so little.
Look also at the population distribution. North of NCR, there are some 20 million people. Two more million in the CAR. Another 25 south of NCR. 20 million in the Visayas. 18 million in Mindanao with some 5 to 6 million in the Muslim regions (mainlanders as well as islanders). And some 10 million living in NCR. (These are not exact figures, and are written from top of mind.)
One economist-professor suggested going by the historic geographical configuration of Luzon-Visayas-Mindanao, with special autonomous regions for the Muslim-dominated provinces and islands, as well as a special region for NCR. But this will not address the current wealth inequality. Luzon is enormously rich, even if you disengage NCR from it.
Of course, transitory provisions in a new Constitution, such as providing for some kind of sinking fund where the rich states can contribute towards alleviating the current economies of the poor states may be effected, but these may sound good on paper but messy in the implementation.
Those who think it is so easy to switch from a unitary system to a federal structure will realize, as the debates begin, that dividing is a tediously argumentative issue.
And we are not discussing the form of government yet, whether it is to be parliamentary as in the British mold, where the head of state is ceremonial, and the head of government is a prime minister elected by his peers in parliament. Or whether it is to be similar to the French system, where the popularly-elected president is both head of state and of government, with ample day-to-day administrative powers given to the prime minister chosen by the president and his party or coalition. Or whether we should retain the presidential system similar to that of the United States.
This again would be another contentious debate.
Thus the decision to create a preparatory commission is welcome. The widespread consultations will do us good, in preparing the citizenry for the possible changes, and in making the whole process as participatory as possible, before the actual draft is debated in Congress acting as a constituent assembly.
There are so many issues pertinent to revising the Constitution. This is but one of them, albeit perhaps the most difficult first step.