Federalism and all that Bull

Professional street activists staged lightning rallies today to oppose the recent initiatives to open the Philippine Constitution to amendments towards a federal type of government. Their beef is that the charter change is mere disguise to extend President Arroyo's hold to power. They maybe right BUT what is annoying is that they choose to ignore an important outcome of the charter change circus - federal form of government that will enable the Moro people to rid themselves of their current rotten local officials. The activists are satisfied of simply shouting "No to Cha Cha" without offering solutions. Typical.

In a federal setup, the "Bangsamoro" and other resulting states/regions will need to remit to the federal government a share of their income (similar to the 75-25 sharing proposed by the BJE agreement). This is in contrast to the current setup that let the government collect taxes and distribute to local governments funds for their use - the IRA setup. Current local officials in the ARMM spend the IRA as their personal funds. They choose not to develop their municipalities nor collect local taxes and generate income because, come what may, the IRA will arrive as mandated by law. The result is that Muslim communities have the poorest living conditions in the country.

If the local governments of ARMM are expected to generate funds (taxes and income) and remit a portion of it to the federal government and use the rest for development (to improve people's lives and generate more funds) - NONE of the current local officials would run for office. Why would anyone spend money to be elected just so they have to work after taking their oaths of offices? Blasphemy!!! No IRA's and the need to generate funds would mean that they would need to cut back on the mansion constructions and the 10-SUV convoys (gasoline costs are too much if you have to work to pay for it). In this setup (thru federalism or amendment of the Local Government Code) would eventually result in decent local officials (as enjoyed by some non-ARMM localities) and/or reduced corruption. Non-ARMM officials limit their corruption to small percentages of their total local budget. Current ARMM officials are 110% corrupt - no exceptions as the remotely decent ones have either get out or had grenades exploding at their front porches.

The current Philippine Constitution has faults and need to be changed. Instead of plain "No to Cha-Cha", please find a way to amend the constitution while keeping our Malacañang zombie-buster off a term extension.