Constitutional reform notes

Looking deeper into what advocates of parliamentary federalism (fedparl) desire, we can see that the Philippines needs reforms to the economic and local government provisions of the 1987 Constitution. They frequently cite cultural diversity and island grography as reasons to advocate their desires political system. There is something particularly noteworthy among the most prominent fedparl advocates: they frequently cite Malaysia and love to forget that Indonesia exists.

Indonesia is sharply larger, more populous, and more culturally diverse than the Philippines. In fact, Indonesia is the world's largest and most populous island country, but it prefers the unitary presidential system. Indonesia's other official name is the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. Federalism is viewed as a divide-and-conquer solution to keep the country weak, the the parliamentary model practically gave Indonesia a very unstable government, hence the preference for unitary presidential system. Federalism it outlawed on Indonesia, as their constitution says that the country's unitary form may not be amended. Meanwhile, The Malaysian model that fedparl advocates present as a gold standard has heavy baggage that advocates like to downplay: its expulsion of Singapore and failure to convince Brunei to join the federation, along with reported neglect of Sabah and Sarawak. Malaysia has also been described as federal in name only.

Perhaps the Philippines can learn from Indonesia on how to manage a group of islands. When political reforms are the discussion, it's safest to amend or revise the economic and local government provision of the 1987 Constiution. Whatever case, the Philippine government should summon a constitutional convention, where it elects a special body of delegates specifically to amend or revise parts of the constitution, because the economic and local government provisions of the 1987 Constitution are extremely broad. In Indonesia, there is no such thing as independent cities, as all cities remain under a province. Indonesia prefers a more streamlined local government system. Indonesia also empowers its provinces to redistribute wealth between the cities and the rural regencies. The Philippines could give provinces the power to tax cities or city propers directly to fund less developed localities. Indonesia also has a moratorium on creating new localities, as that simply adds bureaucracy.

The Philippines should make better use of the province category: return all cities to provincial juisdiction, dissolve the categories "highly urbanized city" and "independent component city," dissolve so-called metropolitan development authorities and transfer their functions to provincial governments. Bangsamoro should be recategorized as a province and the autonomous region category should be dissolved. Indonesia resolves the autonomy problem by assigning special status to certain provinces. To prevent rebellions, Indonesia also empowered its regencies and cities; the logic is that municipalities can fund essential services but are too small to start a rebellion. Jakarta, the national capital of Indonesia, is a single province. The Philippines could reestablish the Province of Manila to cover what is currently Metropolitan Manila, and transfer all functions of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority to the restored province. It is important to remember that the Americans introduced the independent city category, an import from Virginia, United States, by dissolving the Manila province in 1901.