I prefer hell over Federalism

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”
--Thomas Jefferson

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- We salute the 67 percent of the Filipinos who rejected the proposed shift from the unitary to federal form of government in the Philippines surveyed recently by the Social Weather Station (SWS).
At least the Filipinos are now starting to wake up and think logically.
Filipinos are now aware; they have become vigilant and dead set to torpedo any sinister attempt to take them for a nightmarish ride to an ambiguous territory.
Not only that.
In rejecting federalism, we also expect the thinking Filipinos to oppose at all cost any move to cannibalize and distort the Philippine Constitution by changing it without any justifiable reason.
A big no to “cha-cha.”
Some of those agitating to rearrange the fundamental law of the land are incumbent legislators who come from political dynasties and those with vested self, political and business interests determined to protect, sustain, and serve their own whims and caprices.
There is no need to change the Charter actually.

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Our democracy has survived since it was drafted and approved in 1987; and because of this holistic Constitution, Filipinos were able to prevent a totalitarian leadership, a mob rule, invasion by numerically superior forces on our sovereign seas and other territories, and a full-scale Martial Law.
Our present Constitution has effectively served as the watchdog of our democratic institutions and the vanguard of our basic rights and freedom.
It’s the best Constitution in the world, according to former Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr.
It’s pro-poor, pro-women, pro-family, pro-life, swore the retired magistrate, who helped draft the Charter.
The reason Filipinos are afraid of federalism is because they don’t want to experiment with this monster which will only further bloat the bureaucracy through the creation of 18 federated regions and impoverish the people by the imposition of double or even triple taxes on the poor, according to experts.

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In the first place, there was lack of information campaign on the part of the proponents, who only wanted to push the untested federalism into our throats even if there was no urgency and emergency to justify the jump from unitary to federalism.
Simply put, we are not prepared for federalism and we don’t need it now.
We prefer a unitary system of government run like hell by leaders elected directly by the people in a democratic election, than a federal system of government run like heaven by a dictator and his lapdogs in the parliament.
I prefer hell than the risky, divisive and suicidal federalism.