Press Release
November 13, 2007

GMA AND JDV MAY HAVE HIDDEN AGENDA
BEHIND FEDERALISM PROPOSAL -- PIMENTEL

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today expressed suspicion that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. are riding on the proposed adoption of the federal system to push their real objective: to establish a unicameral parliamentary system.

Pimentel said he reacted with skepticism when the President, at the height of the scandal over the national broadband-ZTE project, suddenly revived the federalism proposal. This sparked speculation that the move was meant to divert attention away from the controversies plaguing the Arroyo presidency.

He said both Mrs. Arroyo and De Venecia have not given up the idea of shifting to a parliamentary system because this would enable them to perpetuate themselves in power. The President is barred for running for reelection in 2010 while De Venecia is obsessed with becoming prime minister.

"When they spoke of amending the Constitution, it was primarily to adopt a parliamentary system of government and they were backriding on the issue of federalism," Pimentel said.

"I suspect they have a hidden agenda to prolong themselves in power."

The senator from Mindanao said that he and his party, Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), have been advocating the federalization of the country since 1982 in order to achieve two goals.

First, to dissipate the causes of Muslim unrest in Mindanao. And second, to promote a more equitable development policy for the country.

Pimentel, who attended the fourth international conference on federalism in New Delhi, India last week, said a federal system can be installed in the Philippines while retaining the presidential form of government just like in the United States.

"We can have a model like the US which is federal but presidential. In other words, there is no need to adopt a parliamentary system to fit into a federal system," he said.

The minority leader said one striking fact surfaced during the New Delhi conference: "Federalism is not a silver bullet that can solve all the problems of a nation."

Pimentel said that the unitary system, characterized by the over concentration of powers in the national government, has spawned a lot of problems in the country in terms of development and law and order.

"Under a highly centralized system of government, there are areas in the country which necessarily have to take a backseat, as it were, in the matter of development. And the more developed areas of the country are those that have representatives or powerful personalities who have access to the presidency or the authorities running the central government," he said.

Pimentel said these drawbacks or problems could be better addressed in a federal system where the component federal states will be autonomous by themselves, making decisions without or with the least interference of the central government, and relying more on their own resources for their development.

In a couple of days, he said he will formally introduce a resolution for the adoption of a federal system which calls for the establishment of 10 component federal states in the country and making Metro Manila as a special administrative region.

But by pushing for this proposal, Pimentel said it does not mean that he and other proponents are targeting 2009 or 2010 as the date when federalism will be adopted.

"That is not my purpose. My purpose is to start an honest-to-goodness discussion on the merits and demerits of the federal system, by bringing it out from the halls of Congress to the nooks and corner of the land so that the people can participate and hopefully understand what federalism is all about," he said.

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