How Mayor Moreno can address the concerns of Duterte supporters

Some prominent diehard supporters of Pres. Rodrigo Roa Duterte have endorsed or expressed a willingness to endorse the candidate Isko Moreno for president. One in particular laid down the gauntlet for the mayor to address three main concerns close to his heart as a Duterte supporter. 

It is believed that Pres. Duterte himself is looking to endorse a candidate other than former Senator Bongbong Marcos. He was reportedly upset with the way in which Marcos Jr got presidential daughter and Davao City mayor Sara Duterte to run in his ticket for vice president, while Mr Duterte was offering her the top of the ticket with Sen. Bong Go running as her vice president. 

Moreno is languishing in third or second place in most polls. He can only improve his numbers with votes from the Duterte Sr camp. These voters are preferencing Bongbong at the moment, but it seems they aren't solidly behind him. Many of them are waiting for a signal from the president to determine which candidate to switch to. Could the proddings of some of these diehard pro-Duterte vloggers be this sign? 

Mayor Isko needs to confront the three main issues laid down by them. The document below seeks to address them. It is published here with permission from its source.

 

Mandanas-ruling could worsen fiscal divide

Former Supreme Court justice Artemio Panganiban calls it “Devolution without federalization”. He is referring to the Garcia-Mandanas ruling.

This Supreme Court decision made back in 2019, affirmed the right of LGUs to include ALL FORMS OF REVENUE COLLECTED by the national government in the computation of their internal revenue allotments. This ruling will take effect next year. It’s expected to cost an extra P234 billion, about 1% of GDP. 

To deal with this, economic managers are looking to shift the implementation of various projects worth P405 billion to LGUs. If the NG fails to devolve such powers, it could put pressure on its international credit rating. If LGUs are not prepared to handle the additional functions, it could spell disaster for the post-Covid response.

This could perpetuate the fiscal inequity between “Imperial Manila” and the rest of the country, as we are about to show.

Episode 15: The question of Philippine federalism, Part 3

Now that congress has formally started hearings on charter revisions to shift to a federal structure of government, some legislators are asking: Well, what’s the benefit to the public? Is federalism worth the trouble? The same goes for the proposed adoption of a semi-parliamentary form of government. And is it appropriate for the Philippines, a country of over 100 million people, dispersed over 7,000 islands? In this third and final installment to this series, we seek to supply the answer to these questions, as well as offer a critique of the proposed revisions of the ruling PDP-Laban.

Read the transcripts here.

Episode 10: The question of Philippine federalism, Part 1

Consider the following question: Would you rather have our government run by competent national officials, or by less competent local officials with better ties to local communities?

Or to paraphrase Pres. Manuel L. Quezon, who said he’d rather have a government “run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans”, would you prefer your town to be “run like hell” by local officials than to be “run like heaven” remotely by distant officials from Imperial Manila?

In other words: Is good governance preferable to self-governance? This is the question of the hour, as we consider federalism.

Get the show notes to this podcast here.

Erratum: the podcast mentions that PDP-Laban fielded Corazon Aquino to run in 1986, but the election actually took place in 1985.