BAGUIO CITY—Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan wants the public to carefully study the Duterte administration’s proposal to shift to a federal form of government, saying that Filipinos “need much more time to mature” before a federal state is set up in the country.
The government needs to address several pressing issues before it can shift from the current presidential system, Domogan said, adding that there would be a long transition period from one form of government to another.
One of those issues is the treatment of small provinces within a federal state, the mayor said. The federal constitution must include an “equalizing provision” to prevent small local governments from being discriminated in their share of the revenues and taxes of the state, he said.
With the expected abolition of government agencies under a federal setup, Domogan said the government must also address a mass layoff of state workers, the payment of their benefits, or their re-employment.
The configuration of the federal states, the country’s existing debt and how it will be equitably shared, and the ability of the states to generate resources and apportion them to pay the outstanding debt are other issues that need to be considered, the Baguio chief executive said.
He noted that the Cordillera and Muslim Mindanao regions want to be treated as independent states because of their unique culture and traditions, their distinct terrain and other “justifiable reasons” that have deprived these regions of their adequate share of resources from the government.
The peculiar terrain of the Cordillera deprives the region of a greater share of the Internal Revenue Allotment because the current formula depends on a local government’s land area and population—thus the bigger land area and population for an LGU, the bigger a share of the country’s limited resources it gets, Domogan noted.
He also proposed a unitary form of government with a two-party system, so that politicians will focus on party platforms instead of personalities, which is happening in the current multi-party system.
Domogan also proposed that senators should be elected by region so their budget allocations could be used exclusively in their native regions and guarantee equitable chances of development, instead of other regions being left out in the quest for development funds.