I think that Senator Pimentel’s pitch for federalism is well within CBCP’s call for communal action. He wants to go beyond Gloria bashing. He does not want to just wait for a 2010 or earlier PGMA exit. He has proposed a course of action. He may be in the right path.
Any change of leadership will bring no relief for as long as the conditions that enabled her to do what she did remain. She can borrow as much as she can, and mortgage our future. She controls the purse, even of Congressmen and Senators. She can import billions of pesos worth of rice and channel it to favored traders. She can order Quedancor to finance her pet projects. She can control the distribution of fertilizers. She can enter into secret deals. She can get away with murder.
The list of what she can do, and did is almost endless. Why wouldn't her successor do the same?
Senator Pimentel probably proposed federalism to curb these powers, and empower autonomous states to pursue their own development programs. Surely, he will not lack for followers more so because he dangles P100 billion in what he calls a Federal Equalization Fund. But his idea can only be done through a cha-cha, and once a con-con or a con-ass is convened he will have no control over it. What then is he trying to do? Joining forces with PGMA? Unwittingly perhaps?
If the idea of federalism is the solution to over concentration of powers in the Presidency, then he has himslef to blame for the problem. Well, he can always say he was distracted by his son’s ambition so he failed to see that the benefits of federalism, without its costs had lain in hands for too long. I am referring to the Local Government Code of 1991 which he himself authored.
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