By Johnny C. Nuñez / Philippines News Agency
LEGAZPI CITY — Liberal Party Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay on Monday expressed support for the proposed Charter change (Cha-cha), saying the country needs the “structural change” for political stability to attract more investments, which will lead to more jobs and help solve the poverty problem.
Salceda, who was guest at a recent media forum in Manila, said he intends to coauthor the bill on Cha-cha filed by PDP-Laban Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez of Davao del Norte.
Cha-cha toward federalism is among the leading items on the agenda of the Duterte administration, next to the fight against drugs, criminality and corruption.
A noted economist and economic adviser to former Philippine presidents, Salceda was governor of Albay for three terms, and won the seat of the province’s Second Congressional District in the elections in May. He is credited for bringing down his province’s poverty incidence from 32 percent in 2006 to 24 percent in 2015, the lowest in Bicol.
Salceda said he agrees with the popular opinion that the country needs to reexamine the Constitution and make it more relevant and responsive to present-day realities. A federal government setup, through a revision of the Constitution, he added, “will promote political security in troubled areas of the country, and achieve peace and political and economic stability.”
Federalism, he pointed out, can offer rare opportunities for peace and to unite the country’s diverse ethnic, cultural and religious groups, particularly in Muslim Mindanao.
Sponsors of federalism in Congress have set a timeline of amending the Charter in the first half of Duterte’s six-year term to put in place a transition government in the second half that will set the stage for a full federal state.
Salceda said the primary goals of Cha-cha includes enhanced decentralization, greater local government power and access to resources, especially among regions outside Imperial Manila, for them to chart their own development directions.
As Albay governor, Salceda chaired the Bicol Regional Development Council for nine years and the Luzon Area Development Council for six years.
Through these councils, he introduced various development programs and strategies that sought to open economic development in the countrysides, among them the the approval of the Tutuban-Legazpi-Matnog Train, Southern Luzon Expressway Extension to Legazpi and the Bicol International Airport in Daraga, Albay, set for completion in August 2018.