Duterte’s chance for a federalist legacy
If the Duterte administration is a genuine advocate of federalism, it should be celebrating a landmark Supreme Court decision that delegates more powers to our towns, cities, and provinces.
Instead, governors and mayors are witnessing the opposite: The ruling government wants to preserve the concentration of power in “Imperial Manila.”
In April 2019, the Supreme Court ruled (in Mandanas v. Executive Secretary) that the internal revenue allotments (IRAs) of local government units (LGUs) must not be taken only from the Bureau of Internal Revenue collections, but also from all national taxes collected by other government agencies such as the Bureau of Customs. This will effectively increase the total IRA of all LGUs by P225.3 billion in 2022 when the ruling will begin implementation.
With bigger funds come greater LGU power. The LGUs cheered when the Supreme Court ruling came out because their need to beg for funds, and even give bribe money to national leaders, would be tremendously minimized. Finally, LGUs will have money for expanded health services, internet connectivity for barangays, water and sewage services, skills training, farm inputs and implements for farmers, assistance for the destitute, among others.
Ask LGU officials (and public works contractors) about their yearly struggle in pleading for funds from the national government, and you will hear pitiful stories about being treated as mendicants, and the multiple levels of corruption they have to go through. Of course there’s serious corruption among the LGUs as well, but it’s nothing compared to the many layers of corruption in the national level where grease money is demanded by multiple departments and national politicians involved. The most despised are congressmen/senators who
demand 10 to 20 percent “cuts” (or payments to their chosen beneficiaries) from their pork barrel, which is almost every peso downloaded by departments to their congressional districts.
The Supreme Court ruling will do away with the need for LGUs to curtsy or pay ransom to national officials for the release of funds. But what is the current administration doing? It’s now engaged in a series of concerted actions meant to render the Supreme Court ruling useless.
The national government has done the following to water down the Supreme Court ruling: It has reduced the size of land territories of LGUs, which consequently reduces their IRA allocations, supposedly as a result of a resurvey of their boundaries; it now requires LGUs to pay for right-of-way expropriation costs for local and national roads in their areas; and it will require LGUs to pay for the salaries and expenses of the local offices of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Bureau of Fire Protection.
National leaders don’t realize that, even before the Supreme Court ruling, LGUs already pay for the equipment, operating expenses, and job order personnel of almost all national agencies with offices in their areas, such as the Department of Education (DepEd), Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Commission on Elections, Commission on Audit, Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, BJMP, and courts.
With all these moves, LGUs may end up with even lesser IRAs compared to what they were receiving before the Supreme Court ruling. The LGUs should pursue this fight by filing contempt and other judicial remedies against efforts to reverse their monumental victory.
National officials warn of a looming financial crisis because of the resulting higher budget deficit. But this will only happen if the national government does not stop the pork barrel system. The hundreds of billions of funds of pork barrel can be rechanneled to finance the higher IRA of LGUs.
If President Duterte is a true federalist, he must stop the practice abhorred by LGUs that empower congressmen/senators, through their almighty pork barrel funds, to dictate which farm-to-market roads should be constructed, which students should receive DepEd scholarships, which destitute laborers should receive Department of Labor and Employment short-term employment, which farmers/fishermen should receive aid from the agrarian, agriculture, and environment departments, and which poor families should receive DSWD assistance. All these functions, and the budgets for them, can be downloaded straight to the LGUs to satisfy their bigger IRA entitlements.
President Duterte’s plan to transform our country into a federalist state is no longer achievable, as he has only a year left in office. But the Supreme Court ruling bestows on him the chance to leave a federalist legacy in our government.
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