Thread by @mlq3

A thread on one of the most intriguing but which will probably remain unexplored, factors in the 2022 campaign. Federalism. Interesting FM Jr. pick the Partido Federal instead of the KBL or NP to whom his family has had long-standing affiliations.

KBL is out because it brings back too many bad memories and NP is out because since the Laurels conveyed it to the Villars, it isn't wholly-owned by the Marcoses (and brings up the KBL, with thew Laurels keeping it alive).

FM Jr. has blown hot and cold on Federalism but this article quotes him accurately on his father: "Federalism was not new to the country, Marcos said, because it was adopted by his father,.. when the Interim Batasang Pambansa was created." newsinfo.inquirer.net/929263/federal…

(From Philippine Electoral Almanac) Here is the division of the country into regions, on the basis of which, Assemblymen (Members of Parliament) were elected in 1978. It was a brief experiment in fundamentally redrawing political borders within the country.

(From Electoral Almanac) By 1984 the experiment was over, Assemblymen (Members of Parliament) elected in 1984 represented provinces. Regions exist to this day, but as a shadowy remnant relevant mainly to the bureaucracy.

What even FM couldn't escape was the territorial confines of existing provinces and the political calculus of gerrymandering to divide-and-rule: Quezon province and Moro areas being hotbeds of rebellion and thus needed to be broken up, politically (see shaded areas).

To be sure, Federalism is an old idea; but the details often derail it: first problem, which are regions? Aguinaldo proposed the stars: LuzViMin; but even in the Visayas, there were different states that actually briefly existed (see details on striped areas).

In many ways, even as we've sought to redraw our internal political map, the whole mapping exercise is part historical accident, part warped evolution (warped because short-sightedly pushed forward by parochial political concerns). quezon.ph/2017/06/12/spo…

But at the same time, it's an idea that returns with regularity and in the past 20 years or so, with greater conviction, as I've been observing since 2009. quezon.ph/2009/07/10/not…

Anyway, here is a summary of Federalism as an idea, and its proposals in principle, from an #InquirerBriefing from 2017.

Proponents can change their mind over time (Rizal did). The details can be revealing. Rizal for example may have come close to how French Revolution dissolved old provinces and created entirely new ones. Regions came close to this. facebook.com/notes/90633143…

But again, the ambitions of Regions collided with the existing political geography of clans who define themselves and their territory by provinces. Whether FM's Regions as they've evolved today, or Pimentel's Federal Scheme, they're still arbitrary.

The current President had as thorough a mandate as anyone, to pursue the idea; it was shot down lot least by his own economic team and it seems Congress too, came to have its own misgivings. Yet outside officialdom the idea still has currency and it's that constituency addressed.

It's addressed because it appeals to two geographies, however minor in scale, that still adds to the Marcos coalition: Visayas and Mindanao. It's a pitch to current Federalism orphans abandoned by the President. Cost-free, because the FM Jr. campaign hasn't made it a core plank.