Federalism is a form of government that rests on the theory that the citizens of this country’s local government units – the provinces, cities and municipalities – are the best judges of what is best for their communities and are capable of responding, on their own authority and using their own resources, to the needs of their communities.
That is the theory underlying federalism. But the reality – the contemporary Philippine reality – is far from the truth. Consider the current turmoil over Boracay Island, which arguably is the best known tourist destination in this country.
When he recently called attention to the deplorable sewerage situation in Boracay and called the island a “cessfool” – in the process virtually destroying the decades-long effort to make Boracay a world tourism gem – President Rodrigo Duterte may have thought that he was blowing the whistle on a newly unearthed and long-concealed problem. This patently was not the case. Boracay’s sanitation problem has long been one of this country’s very open secrets. The health and environment authorities called attention to the problem many years ago, warning that something had to be done about the above-standards coliform levels before Boracay became a disgraced and to-be-avoided international tourist destination.
The warnings continued and the negative stories in the Philippine press kept appearing – some of the stories verging on the graphic – but the governments most closely involved did previous little.
Which are the governments I am referring to?
For starters there’s the municipality of Malay, three of whose barangays comprise the 1,000-hectares-plus area of Boracay. The government of the municipality cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be unaware of the countless violations of health, environmental and zoning regulations being committed on the once-pristine island.
Although they were in the frontline of the effort to safeguard Boracay’s beauty and security, the municipal authorities did nothing substantive in that direction. They were so busy levying and collecting fees on a growing number of things, all the while apparently believing that the health, environmental and zoning problems were transitory and would eventually go away. More colossal inaction and negligence it is difficult to imagine.
At a higher level of government, there has been the province of Aklan, of which Malay was once an insignificant part. The government of the province – from the governor to the provincial sanggunian – have likewise long known about the increasingly bad problem of Malay, but I do not recall Aklan’s political leaders getting together with the Malay officials on Boracay’s problems and offering support and cooperation to the latter toward the solution of the problems.
At a still higher level of government, there has been the Regional Development Council (RDO) for Region VI, which encompasses the province of Aklan. The PDCs were created for the purpose of solving the socio-economic problems of this country on a regional basis. Again, I do not recall the Region VI RDC taking up the growing Boracay health-environment issue and proposing regionally-directed solution.
So here we had three levels of government, all with authority to deal with something about Boracay’s problems but doing nothing substantive about them. Together, they could have prevented Boracay’s problems from reaching the serious national – nay, international – level that they have. But they did not. It took the national government, in the person of President Duterte, to call attention to the “cesspool” situation in Boracay and take concrete actions to deal with it.
Would the situation have been didifferent if a federalist form of government were already in place and Aklan/Malay were part of one of the federated states? I am absolutely sure it would not.
Truly, the Boracay issue is a perfect test case for the success prospects of federalism.
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