Part 1 of 3

There are no clearer marching orders given to Congress than the pronouncement of President Rodrigo Duterte in his recent SONA that the Philippines should adopt a federal-parliamentary government modeled after France, with a “strong” President. Federalism was a major rallying cry for then presidential candidate Digong (the other was peace and order). We are looking at a leader who is keeping his word.

Although the topic of federalism has been discussed since the 1971 Constitutional Convention, there are still many areas that are not clear even to political analysts. In the interest of full disclosure, I will state now that I have always been in favor of a federal system of government and I have written several columns in the past about this topic. However, today I want to focus on clarifying certain issues.