Federalism round table discussion – opening remarks

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.I would like to applaud the participants in
this round table discussionfor federalism for accepting our invitation and lending their
considerabletalents to this endeavor on this lovely afternoon. On behalf of the Institutefor Government
and Law Reform, thank you very much for coming andwelcome to !"Let me start with a simple thought
e#periment. $ow big do you thinkthe !hilippines is% In geography we learn that we have a land area of
aroundthree hundred forty thousand s&uare kilometers, but is that how big we are%Our internal waters
between islands count as sovereign territory, shouldn'tthat area be included% In fact, if you put the
country into a map of the continental nited(tates, the !hilippines, whose land area is about the si)e of
the state of *ew+e#ico, actually stretches from e#as to *orth Dakota. If you put us into amap of -urope,
(ulu to atanes would stretch from Italy to Denmark. heillusion of being a small country has been
brought about by te#tbooksespousing maps that use the misleading +ercator pro/ection. his huge
e#panse of territory, with considerable stretches of sea inbetween scattered mountainous islands, has
produced a cornucopia of cultures, peoples, traditions and languages. Our people are diverse, and
thestruggle of governing a diverse nation has troubled the leaders of thiscountry ever since our 0rst
attempts at self1determination. oday the !hilippine state is still centered on an
administrativebureaucracy centered on the *ational 2apital Region. 3uthority emanatesfrom the capital
city, but enforcing this authority presents a set of problemsthat has hounded kingdoms and empires
since time immemorial.It is not without some irony that we discuss the virtues and risks of federalism
here, today, right smack in the middle of Imperial +anila. hatterm has served to be a rallying point for
those unsatis0ed with a perceivedimbalance in government attention between the provinces and the
*2R. hey contend that development is constrained by an unwarranted biastowards +anila and the
regions surrounding it, and the further you get awayfrom the capital, the more you are neglected. he
man of the hour is of course our !resident, Rodrigo Duterte. $ispresidential campaign had pushed the
debate over our current form of government from something that had been on the backburner for
severalyears into a key election issue. he !resident's view was anchored on the