Saturday, March 18, 2017
By MERLINDA A. PEDROSATERESA D. ELLERA

BACOLOD. Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia (center) with Southern Leyte Rep. Roger Mercado (2nd from left) and Negros Occidental lawmakers Alfredo Benitez of 3rd District (left), Mercedes Alvarez of 6th District, and Greg Gasataya of Bacolod (right) during the consultation on constitutional reform in the city Friday, March 17. (Merlinda A. Pedrosa)

VISITING Southern Leyte Lone District Representative Roger Mercardo said Friday, March 17, the Philippines could have a federal form of government before the end of term of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2022.

Mercado, chair of House committee on constitutional amendments, led the “Public Consultation on Constitutional Reform” held at the Bacolod City Government Center lobby.

Among the officials present were Mayor Evelio Leonardia, Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran, Bacolod City Representative Greg Gasataya, Negros Occidental Third District Representative Alfredo Benitez and Sixth District Representative Mercedes Alvarez, Fifth District Board Member Alain Gatuslao, Agusan del Norte First District Representative Lawrence Lemuel Fortun, Parañaque Second District Representative Gus Tambunting, and some municipal and city mayors.

“We could have a federal form of government through the prayers and support of our people,” Mercado said. He said they need to seek the pulse of the people whether it is necessary to amend or revise the Constitution, and what is the mode of revising the Constitution either constitutional convention, people’s initiative or constituent assembly.

“Hopefully, we can bring this to Congress and we will convene hopefully again as constituent assembly to revisit and look at the second time the present Constitution,” the lawmaker said.

Mercado said that Eastern Visayas or Region 8 that he represents is until now under-developed and has not gotten attention from the Central Government.

“That is why our people demand that we should go for the federal form of government so that at least our infrastructure, demands for development, and social needs will be attended to,” he added.

In federal form of government, Mercado explained, there are two views – to retain the present organizational structure of the local governments composed of 13 regions, including the Negros Island Region (NIR), and to combine the regions that are having some problems on income generation like Region 8 to join with Central Visayas-Region 7.

“We hope that we can finish the new Constitution because we are very excited and we want to contribute to the change. Our goal here is to make our Constitution as an instrument to provide poverty alleviation, to make our regions progressive because there are lots potentials in our regions. It’s just a matter of providing resources and support,” Mercardo said.

It has been decided by the members of the House of committee on constitutional amendments that they will recommend revising the Constitution through a Constituent Assembly.

“We have already approved to convene both the Senate and the House into a Constituent Assembly. We expect that we could finish our work in six months or by March next year,” Mercado said.

Meanwhile, Leonardia said he supports the shift to federalism because he feels that it is going to be good for Bacolod and Negros Occidental. He said he is thankful to Mercado and the committee members for choosing Bacolod as one of the four areas for the public consultations. Gasataya said any form of provision or manner to improve the localities outside Metro Manila is a welcome move.

“We are open to the federalism proposal,” he added. Alvarez, the Deputy Speaker for the Visayas, said the Visayan Bloc has already filed a resolution for the continuation of the NIR, and that they will push for a separate NIR federal state. Benitez, a leader of the Visayan Bloc, said that since NIR is in status quo, he told the heads of the departments to wait before the clustering of the federal states is finished, and they will push for an NIR federal state.

He added it is the people who will finally decide on the Constitutional amendments, and that they, as members of the Constituent Assembly, will only recommend reforms in some provisions.

“Why do we have to change the Constitution? We should ask are we better off today than we were 30 years ago because if we said we are better off today, then we don’t need to change it. And if we say we are still the same then, it is imperative that we need a structural change through changing the Constitution. We should change the necessary provisions of the Constitution for the betterment of our constituents,” Benitez said.