Out of place

My colleagues, Anamarie Pamintuan, Jarius Bondoc and Cito Beltran have already given their insights on the Blair lectures. I was sitting next to Jarius and Cito in what must have been the STAR row.

Let me tackle Beltran’s complaint first about the overly long introduction Lorna Kapunan made of former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and his own kilometric speech that followed after and “ate up a lot of time”.

On my right was a lady executive from RCBC. She, too was bitching on why we should be sitting there listening to the insulting prattle from the former chief justice that followed.

Panganiban’s speech was not just too long, it was shallow and out of place. He talked mostly about himself (what a good man he was!), and to top the effrontery also included an advertisement on his many books and just in case we forget there was a slide of that, too. The other half of the speech was dedicated to attacking President GMA and the Philippines as one of the most corrupt countries. He seemed oblivious that most in the audience were individuals who could certainly make up their own minds about what they think of the President and their love of country. He must have thought the audience were 10 and below so he had to use diagrams and enumerations flashed on the screen to give his highly partisan speech before a mixed audience of Filipinos and non-Filipinos.

Except for the lady next to me, I did not talk to others and dismissed my disgust with the Panganiban speech as my own. By coincidence I had a business lunch with some top executives who felt the same thing. One of them said, “the inappropriateness of the former chief justice speech” was talked about.

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Jarius Bondoc caught the most essential feature of the Blair speech that many had missed. “Blair deems devolution his biggest reform. Not only are parliaments sitting in Scotland and Wales, but also in Northern Ireland.” I personally believe that also contributed to the Good Friday Agreement. That topic should have been pursued and seriously discussed within the Philippine context. The trouble is the organizers were not up to it. Or Mr. Blair must have already known that the mixed audience would not have been geared for such topics. That is understandable but it would be unforgivable if those who knew better did not comment on how an opportunity was missed albeit as a postscript.

Devolution would have been the most relevant contribution Blair could have given to the local debate on how to resolve the Muslim conflict in the south. It was his forte and could have clarified why it is now regarded as the most viable option in resolving political conflicts.

I will expand on that and say that devolution was the key issue on which the Labour Party, led by Blair, rode to victory in the 1997 election. The Labour Party promised a devolved form of government for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (though Northern Ireland had already a degree of self-rule). Like the federal principle, devolution is a term for transferring power from “a superior governmental body (such as central power) to an inferior one (such as at regional level).” When the Labour Party won the election it kept its promise and referendums were held in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Had Mr. Blair been less charming and more serious he might have taken time to know more about the political debate in the Philippines and offered the Labour Party program of devolution as a way forward in the stalemate of GRP negotiations with Muslim rebel groups. Except that the term and concept we have used for devolution is federalism, the same dilemma exists. Devolution and federalism are akin to each other since both involve the sharing of power. In the UK it meant “setting up of an elected regional assembly whose powers are carefully and clearly defined by national government.” The virtues and comparisons between forms of devolution and federalism is an ongoing debate among its many students and practitioners around the world. More and more it is now seen as a way out of conflict. Solutions may differ from country to country but the intent and purpose remains the same. In some countries, the sharing of power is focused on tax collection and in others, it is local participation in deciding big ticket items on health and education. The central government almost universally controls the armed forces and makes the foreign policy decisions.

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It is my opinion that the Blair lecture would have contributed more and his visit more useful had he dwelt on this perspective. After all, devolution, can be said to have broken the Conservative’s back, the party in power for decades. He could have called on the local opposition to concentrate on real reforms, yes — constitutional reforms leading to federalism. Unfortunately, the man he could have called on for that topic was not there. Oppositionist Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. is widely regarded as the father of federalism because of his consistent advocacy of restructuring government to share power with lesser constituencies. It was his party, the PDP-Laban, organized in 1982 that looked to federalism as a way out of martial law and the armed rebellions against it. What a knock-out it would have been had Pimentel and Co. been part of that dialogue with former Prime Minister Blair. That would have been the cue for the Opposition to wrest the upper hand in the constitutional debate and make it the center of its program of government that Lakas-CMD is now failing to do. Had the British leader spoken on the leadership he exercised during the dark days when Labour languished in opposition, his visit would have been more useful and helpful to the Philippines trying to find its way out of its dilemmas.

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As it was, his visit was a smashing social event and probably made the same grade as a rock star’s visit. That by the way, was one of his earlier ambitions.