The administration of President Rodrigo Duterte has announced that its three priorities for the 17th Congress, which starts on July 25, are the conversion of the present system of government to a federalist system, the restoration of the death penalty and the grant of emergency powers to President Duterte for the solution of this country’s metropolitan traffic problems. The first priority item—the shift to federalism—will require an amendment of the Constitution, which in turn will require approval by the Filipino people in a plebiscite called for the purpose. The two other priority items can be made into laws by mere Congressional action.
Because it will require submission to a national plebiscite, the shift to a federalist form of government will be the hardest of the three priority items. The restoration of the death penalty will also be difficult to sell because of its implications for human rights, religion, criminal rehabilitation theory and the Constitutional provision on cruel and unusual punishment. With its ‘supermajority’ in Congress, President Duterte should get his emergency powers with little difficulty.
Involving, as it will, the handover of all but a few governmental powers from the present seat of government to the newly created federation components, a shift to federalism—with the concomitant losses and gainers of governmental authority—will be a tough sell to the nation. Uppermost in the minds of many Filipinos will be the thought of deterioration in the quality of governance and increased incidence of warlordism, divergence from national policy directions, abuse of the newly transferred powers, and political-dynasty building. Truth to tell, the people who are obsessed with the idea of a move to federalism are the politicians who desire access to revenues directly and not through DBM (Department of Budget and Management). Indeed, I dare say that if one were undertaken, a survey would find that Filipinos residing out of Mega Manila—in the provincial cities and municipalities—are not exceedingly dissatisfied with the present governmental structure.
A pro-federalism Constitutional amendment would come into being if done through a constituent assembly—the two houses of Congress deliberating and voting together—rather than through a Constitutional convention, but, whichever route is taken, there is still the national plebiscite to reckon with. The Filipino people may well disapprove the proposed amendment.
The death penalty has had an unstable history in the postwar era, its fate depending on the prevailing level of criminality and the state killing of capital-crime offenders. A death penalty proposal will meet opposition from formidable quarters: the Catholic Church, the human-rights folk and the groups who can see poverty—and the resultant inability to obtain good legal assistance—as the course of so many miscarriages of justice. But with its Congressional supermajority, the Duterte administration should be able to get the death penalty restored.
There already is virtual approval of the proposal to vest President Duterte with emergency powers to deal with the nation’s urban transportation problems. The incoming Speaker of the House of Representatives has vowed speedy action on the proposal, and the outgoing Senate president has filed a bill intended to grant the Chief Executive the desired powers. Effective use of the powers will be welcomed by an urban population driven to desperation by the daily chaos on Mega Manila’s roads.
Given the complex character of the government’s top-priority legislative agenda, the Duterte administration and the 17th Congress clearly have their work cut out for them.
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