First what is federalism?

Federalism is defining as the allocation of power between the national

government and regional government. A system of government in which the power is divided
between a central authority and constituent political units. Is it advisable for a country like us to
adapt this kind of government?

According to Jose Abueva, former president of University of the Philippines and a professor of
public and administration we should take federal kind of government. He said that the Philippines
would take a period of no less than 10 years to make a successful transition to federalism, involving
a period of consolidation of several regions and intensive socioeconomic development in each of
consolidated regions. Advantages of federal government are the following: (1) It ensures that
government remains close to the people because the state government argue that they are more in
tune with the daily needs and aspirations of people especially relevant to small and isolated places.
(2) It encourages development of the nation in a decentralized and regional manner and allows for
unique and innovative methods for attacking social, economic and political problems. (3) It provides
a barrier to the dominance of the majority, while the disadvantages are the following: (1) It can lead
to duplication of government and inefficient, over-lapping or contradictory policies in different parts
of the country. (2) It can lead to inequality between the states and lead to unhealthy competition and
rivalry between them. (3) It cal lead to over-government that will result to corruption. I have cited
both faces of federal government in order to inform all of you that federal government is a good
system of government and a good example of successful federal kind of government is the United
States of America. But the question here is do we really need it? Is it advisable for our country to
change the government into federal?

On my point of view, we do not need here a change of government all we need is to strengthen the
centralized government. And also it’s very expensive to have a federal kind of government. We have
no enough funds because we are still paying our debts. We have already LGU’S and NGO’S to monitor
the needs of people that have a power equal to the national government. We are making our
situation complicated if we change our present government into federal. Lastly, the Philippines is a
third world country and according to survey last September 16, 2006 we have 25 only of the world’s
193 countries have federal political system, and 3 out of 25 is belong in Asia. It only indicates that a
third world country like us is not ready and cannot afford the federal government.