Written on May 07, 2008
For the Standard Today,
May 08 issue
As promised, I will discuss the reaction of Manuel Lino G. Faelnar to my previous article Federal Fol-de-Rol. He at least based his argument on verifiable historical evidence, unlike the five or six others who gave vent to purely emotional and anecdotal guesswork, without any basis in economics, demography, history, geography, political science, ethno-linguistics or just plain common sense.
Reader Faelnar identifies himself as the director of DILA Philippines Foundation Inc. and the director of Lubas sa Dagang Bisaya Inc. DILA stands for Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago. Clever acronym, that.
He started out his reaction as follows: "We believe you would have been better served had you searched in Google or Wikipedia before you wrote your article. You wrote:
'Can Pimentel and his 11 apostles cite even one example in the last 60
years of a country that switched from a unitary state to a federal
union, or from a federal union to a unitary state? Or from the
presidential to the parliamentary system, or from parliamentary to
presidential? And suddenly achieved elusive prosperity as a result of
that switch? They can't because there isn't any..'
"Mr. Abaya, you are dead wrong. Here are a few examples of countries, most notably Belgium, UK and Spain, which have become federal since 1960:" And he went on to list and encapsulate the recent political history of those 12 countries. (I understand from another pro-federal reader that Faelnar was hired by Sen. Pimentel to reply to me.)
As his reaction email rambles on for four pages, it is too long to reprint here in its entirety. But, without researching into Google or Wikipedia, I can scratch away most of those 12 countries from the list, especially Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain.
Please note that I challenged Sen. Pimentel and his 11 (is it now 16?) apostles in the Senate to "cite even one example in the last 60 years of a country that switched from a unitary state to a federal union…….and suddenly achieved elusive prosperity as a result of that switch…." It is important to remember this point because the rationale for Sen. Pimentel's federalism is "to spur economic growth."
Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain do not fall within those parameters because they achieved prosperity long before they federated (or virtually federated, in the case of the UK, which does not have a formal Constitution),.(or "fiscally federated" in the case of Spain, which basically remains a unitary state).
These three countries became prosperous (or "spurred their economic growth") as a result of their early membership in the European Economic Community, which is now known as the European Union, which expanded the markets for their export products and services. They did not become prosperous just because they federated or virtually federated or fiscally federated...
Additionally, Belgium is in limbo as a federal union. Because of the historical enmity between the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemings, Belgium did not have a government for six months in 2007 and may actually split into separate countries. This would be similar to the break-up in 1993 of the federated Czechoslovakia (which Faelnar failed to include in his list) into the Czech Republic and Slovakia..
The "fiscal federalism" of South Africa and the actual federalism of Russia also do not count since they were already federal unions before their present incarnations. As every stamp collector knows, South Africa used to be known as the Union of South Africa, which reflected the diverse origins of the early settlers (the Dutch-descended Boers or Afrikaaners), the later arrivals (the British), and the Zulus who migrated in between..
The present Russian Federation (1993) was preceded by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, both of them federal unions, separated by only about 20 months of chaos as Communist deputies in the Duma or Lower House attempted to stage a coup d'etat to recover the state power that they lost in 1991. Additionally, Russia's current prosperity is not due to its being a federal union but to the high world prices of oil and gas.
Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the Federated States of Micronesia also do not count since they were federal unions right from the start of their national lives as independent states. They did not begin as unitary states and then shifted to federal unions "to spur economic growth," which is Pimentel's rationale for his proposal and the parameters for my objection..
I was in the UAE in 1995 as guest of the UAE government (as I was in Malaysia in 1992 as guest of the Malaysian government.) The UAE is, of course, fabulously wealthy, but it cannot be a model for this country since that wealth is due solely to oil and gas, which we do not have in similar abundance. Besides, 80% of its population are foreigners, a situation unique to the UAE. And what can we possibly learn from Micronesia, which has a population of only 107,000 at low tide?
So, after removing Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, South Africa, Russia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Federated States of Micronesia from Reader Faelnar's list, what does he have left as role models to entice us with to federalism?
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, Nepal and Nigeria.
Would Sen. Pimentel and his 11 (or 16) senator-apostles call for dancing in the streets that we have four such inspiring role models for a shift to federalism?
Even that may be premature. Bosnia and Herzegovina (or B&H) may have been a unitary state (I don't really know) between the end of World War I (which began with an assassination in its capital Sarajevo) and the beginning of World War II.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the fabled Communist guerilla leader Josip Broz, more widely known as Marshal Tito, stitched together a federal union called Yugoslavia ('Southern Slavs') made up of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, B&H, Macedonia and Kosovo (as part of Serbia).
But after the death of Tito in 1980, the union began to show cracks and fissures, largely due to differences in religion: Croatia and Slovenia are predominantly Roman Catholic, Serbia and Macedonia are predominantly Eastern Orthodox, Kosovo and B&H are predominantly Muslim.
The simmering three-cornered conflict finally erupted into open civil war in 1992, resulting in the bloodiest genocide in Europe since WWII as the majority Serbs tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the federal union intact.(Faelnar also failed to include this in his list.)
So it can probably be said that Bosnia and Herzegoovina did transit from a unitary state to a federal union, but did it finally achieve prosperity? Even Faelnar says that may happen if and when B&H is accepted into the European Union. Too bad the Philippines has no chance whatsoever of becoming a member of the EU.
(Another federal union that Faelnar did not include in his list – perhaps because it is an economic failure - is Myanmar, which was known as the Union of Burma when it became independent in 1947, and is now the Union of Myanmar, under military rule since 1962.)
According to Faelnar, Ethiopia became a federal union n 1994, but judging from the endless famines that we see on TV, federalism is far from having "spurred economic growth." So is Nigeria, which like Malaysia, has been a federal union since independence and should also be scratched off this list. Despite becoming a major oil producer in this decade., Nigeria has been racked by civil wars, military take-over, mega-corruption, recurring kidnapping of foreigners including Filipinos, and tit-for-tat massacres by Muslims and Christians involving hundreds of victims each time...
The only country in Faelnar's list that could conceivably resemble the Philippines is Nepal, which was a unitary state under a monarchy until 2007, last year, when the monarchy was overthrown and the new Nepal resurrected as a federal union Whether it will enjoy prosperity as a result of that shift is too early to tell.
The only problem is that the monarchy was replaced by the Maoist Party. Here's your last chance, Joma Sison, to push your Maoist Revolution.. *****
Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot,com.
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