Francisco S. Tatad
According to Merriam-Webster English Language Learners Dictionary, to “federalize” is “to join (states, nations, etc.) together in or under a federal system of government.” Concrete illustration of this is every existing federal government in the world, from the United States, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, to Malaysia. The correct usage therefore is to federalize 18 regions into one federal union, and not to federalize one unitary state into 18 separate regions. The proper term for that opposite process would be balkanization, which means to divide the nation into smaller (mutually hostile) states or groups.
It is an inherent and irreconcilable intellectual contradiction, like holding that a square is in fact a circle, which no right-thinking mind can possibly latch upon. But since DU30 has openly proposed his dogma, no one has found the moral and intellectual courage to prostrate themselves before him and say, “Your Majesty, it sounds like a great idea, but as far as my poor brain can grasp it, it is all wrong.” Everyone proclaims how wonderfully gilded the self-anointed king from Davao is, but in fact the king has no clothes at all!
DU30’s ablest defenders have tried to justify his folly by saying he is merely trying to fulfill a promise he made during the presidential debates. Indeed, he promised to have the Constitution amended, in order to establish a federal system of government, just as he made so many other promises, which he has not bothered to fulfill at all. But for the reasons just cited, this was an election promise he was not expected to fulfill precisely because the Constitution did not allow him to propose any amendment, and his idea of federalism has long been buried by the constitutional reality of a Philippine unitary state. Finally, there is no popular clamor for federalism, assuming the public shared DU30’s misguided understanding of the concept, to which he had a duty to respond…