Consultative committee (Con-com) Chairman and former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno is confident that the country will be able to complete its federal transformation by 2022 with the right model to follow.
“By 2022 we should have already federalized, meaning we will no longer have a unitary government. We will have a federal government where the powers of the government had already been allocated both to the federal government and to the states and/or the constituent units,” he said on Monday.
Although a model is still being developed, Puno said they are looking at a gradual and evolving shift to federalism, taking into consideration the readiness of the constituent units.
With this, the Con-com is asking concerned government agencies to submit fiscal data that would help determine the capacity of autonomous regions to make the transition.
“Depending on this fiscal data, we shall be constructing the model that should be ideal for the Philippines,” Puno said. “The process will depend on the standards that will be agreed upon in this proposed constitution before these autonomous regions will be developed into states and we cannot put definite timeline on how they can evolve into full states.”
The Con-com, Puno added, will propose transitory provisions that will make it easier to transform to a regular federal government. “If you look at the transitory provisions of different constitutions, it did not take a lot of indefinite time to be able to go to a regular government. I like to think that will also happen in the constitution that we shall be proposing.”
Puno also stressed that the Con-com is not inclined to give any holdover provision for the President or any other official by the time the country has shifted to a federal form of government, as the term limits under the 1987 Constitution will still be binding.
He also said it is “almost impossible” that a plebiscite on the amendment of the new Constitution will happen by October this year.
“I think it’s almost impossible to have this new Constitution approved by the people by October of this year,” he said. “Congress would still have to convene as Con-ass [constituent assembly], and until now, the Senate has not agreed to join the House in Con-ass. Assuming the Senate agrees, I supposed that will take some time.”
The Senate, Puno noted, is also poised to become an impeachment court to hear the impeachment case of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes A. Sereno.
“I do not see how the month of October will be imagined as the date that the constitution will be given to the people and ratified by the people,” Puno said.