Federalism preserves dying languages!

Last Saturday evening, my wife Jessica and I sat down at the Waterfront Hotel lobby with Dr. Jose "Pepe" Abueva of the Kalayaan College for an intense two-hour discussion on the prospects of Federalism, which he is proposing for the country. Indeed, we must give credit where credit is due; the concept of Federalism started from the group of Dr. Abueva and the Citizen’s Movement for a Federal Philippines (CMFP). It doesn’t mean to say that they’re the only ones who are espousing for a Federal and Parliamentary system in this country. There are other groups, but it’s the CMFP that put into reality a Draft Constitution for a Federal Republic of the Philippines.

In fact CMFP has done a lot of Road shows on Federalism and I attended the one they held in Cebu last October 2003. Dr. Abueva was in Cebu for a conference with the Lakas-CMD to explain to them the ideology of Federalism. Indeed, so many Filipinos still cannot grasp the greater benefits of Federalism…they don’t realize that it makes the different states equally as strong as the Federal government…especially the rich states. Threats of coups would be greatly minimized with a Federalized system because of the presence of strong states, which acts as a balancer to the Federal gov’t.

It is for this reason why a Federal Philippines is more acceptable outside Metro Manila because it gives local government units a chance to really compete with each other and the different states get to collect and most importantly, keep all tax revenues except the ones exclusively for the Federal government. In fact because it doesn’t have to spend so much except for the military and foreign and Postal service, the Federal government would generate a lot of revenues because it has a lesser operational cost. This alone is quite revolutionary…something we should have done back in 1987 when they were drafting a new constitution. But we moved back instead of forward.

Why shift to a Federal State when Sen. Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr. fathered the Local Government Code, which was supposed to give the local government units autonomy? But the reality is, we’ve always been great in enacting laws, but almost zero in implementing it. But now that we’re on the brink of getting a taste of Federalism, Sen. Pimentel is nowhere around. He’s too busy trying to grab political power and become the next President.

But I do know that deep in his heart Nene is for a Federal Philippines, however, admitting this in public now might be misconstrued as supporting President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This is where he has lost his statesmanship at the time when we needed true statesmen to appear in our political horizon so we can put in a better system of government for this country where good governance is paramount.

Dr. Abueva gave me a copy of his new booklet entitled, Charter Change For Good Governance: Towards a Federal Republic of the Philippines with a Parliamentary Government. I have been using his earlier book with the same title which he dubs A Reader which gives details on how we can Federalize. This was supported by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) whose country manager Mr. Klaus Preschle I also met earlier that morning.

If you truly believe in the concept of a Federalized Philippines, you should have a copy of this book, as it would be a good guide for you to see where we are headed. If any, the only problem I have with this book, including the previous one, which I openly told before Dr. Abueva, is that it still uses "Taglish" for its sub-titles. The States for instance is called "Estados" which is obviously Spanish, while the Federal Government is called "Gobyerno Federal". In my book, words like "Pideral Komisyones Konstitusyonal" gives us the impression that we still have linkages with our colonizers, the Spanish and yes, Virginia, many people in the South entertain the thought that the rest of the Philippines is a colony of Imperial Manila.

Dr. Abueva knows that I belong to the group called Save our Languages through Federalism (Solfed) the only organization in this country seeking to prevent other languages from dying, including the Tagalog language. Hence, in no uncertain terms, I told him that it would be better if our constitution is written in English and each Federal State translates this constitution into their own languages… in pure Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo, Waray, Bicolano, Tausug or Ilocano.

Ultra nationalists who insist on having Filipino as the "National Language" although it is taken 99.9 percent from the Tagalog language do not realize that they are in fact destroying or killing a beautiful language. If Balagtas were alive today and he dropped in one of the coffee houses of Metro Manila, he would have fits of temper hearing people speak in Taglish or Sward speak! It’s no longer pure Tagalog and that means, Tagalog as a language is really dying!

Please don’t tell me or insist that the Filipino language is "evolving" because in my book, if you insist on Filipinos speaking only in one "evolved" language, then we’re the only nation trying to invent a language! That means you are allowing the other languages of this archipelago to die and become as extinct as the Mayan, the Inca or Nahuatl, the Aztec language. No wonder we have no unity as a Filipino nation! Yes, I’m writing this piece on the last day of the "Buwan ng Wika" to prove a point that we really don’t need a national language. They don’t have that in the US Constitution!

There’s no doubt that we’re still far away from achieving our goals for a Federal Philippines, because of people who insist that there is no need to change the constitution and that the problem is for our people to change their ways. Some pundits only reveal their ignorance by bashing on Dr. Abueva. C’mon guys, Dr. Abueva is merely the salesman for a Federal System. We in the media often get personally bashed by critics who attack us instead of our subject… and we tell them that we are merely the messengers. You can question or debate that the present system is better than a Federal system, but leave Dr. Abueva out of it… he is only the messenger!

While I agree with the view that there is no perfect system, I happen to believe that it would be far more difficult to change the ways of the Filipino. It is much better to change into a better system of governance. As the late Deng Xiaopeng once said, "It is better to build a system where good men cannot do evil and evil men can only do good." That is the system that best describes what Federalism is all about.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly Talkshow entitled, "Straight from the Sky" shown every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8 in the evening.