A RIDICULOUS TEN-YEAR TRANSITION TO FEDERAL STATE

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

NOTWITHSTANDING the ongoing debates on the pros and cons of a presidential or parliamentary government, and unitary or federal states, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has unwittingly provided a ridiculous sideshow by proposing a ten-year transition to a federal state. His proposal belongs to the realm of the bizarre.

If he were not the House top honcho and the country’s fourth highest political leader, it would be tempting to believe that he is a mere comedian to whom we would laugh upon hearing his latest comic spiel. Or he could be one of the guys turned nuts.

But he is serious. He wants a ten-year transition, which means the members of current Congress and local officials would stay on their respective political offices for the next ten years without direct mandate from the Filipino people.

It is definitely too tiresome and troublesome to see the same faces for more than a decade. We could not help but ask what crime did the Filipino people commit to deserve this political punishment.

Let’s go to the main beef.

A ten year transition period is not justified. It would never be justified. It is too long. Our own political history hardly supports this proposal.

The late president Cory Aquino, during her incumbency, did the tumultuous transition from the detested Marcos dictatorship to a restored democracy in a single year. She did the transition amid a failing economy that had the worst postwar recession and a series of destructive and debilitating military coups by rebel soldiers, who could not accept they would be under civilian leadership in a restored democracy.

Installed by the near bloodless 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, Mrs. Aquino did not enjoy any smooth transition. But she knew her social contract with the Filipino people. She threw away the 1973 Constitution, the blueprint of the Marcos dictatorship, adopted a revolutionary government and followed a temporary constitution, replaced all local government officials with officers-in-charge (OICs) and created a commission to run after the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their ilk.

Knowing the imperative was to dismantle the Marcos dictatorship and the institutions and processes they represented, Mrs. Aquino formed a 50-man commission that drated a new constitution. On February 7, 1987, or nearly a year after the EDSA Revolution, the Filipino people ratified the 1987 Constitution as the incontrovertible blueprint of the restored democracy.

Mrs. Aquino did the transition with profound political will. She did not enjoy the convenience of modern technology like wireless telephony and digital technology. But she had the heart and willingness to bring back democracy to the country. 

 Mrs. Aquino knew by heart that the restoration of democracy fell on her lap. She had no choice but traverse the tortuous road to a restored democracy with nary a whimper. She did it in full throttle notwithstanding the political obstacles, which her enemies and other reactionary forces had laid down along the road.

Three months after its ratification, the first elections under the 1987 Constitution were held for members of the new Congress.  A year later, the elections of local officials were held to replace those OICs. The rest is history.

It is not exactly clear why the transition to the envisioned federal state would take ten years. Alvarez would not – and could not - say in concrete and exact, or even in broad - terms details of the proposed transition. He neither discusses what could be expected to achieve during the transition period.

Likewise, he could not discuss any political alternatives just in case the transition has become rocky or chaotic. Alvarez could hardly justify either why the current officials would remain in their posts for the next ten years.

At this point, it is widely feared that the transition would lead not to a federal state, but to a dictatorship that could only lead the country to chaos and disaster.

Given our experience with the Marcos dictatorship, Alvarez’s proposal for a ten year transition would only give flesh to what British parliamentarian Lord Action has said: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It is even feared that about 200 political families would get more entrenched in power defeating the purpose of democratizing political power in the country. Definitely, what Alvarez has provided is a recipe for national suicide.