Federalism: Its Advantages and Disadvantages

First what is federalism? Federalism is defining as the allocation of power between the national
government and regional government. A system of government in which the power is divided between a
central authority and constituent political units. Is it advisable for a country like us to adapt this kind of
government?

According to Jose Abueva, former president of University of the Philippines and a professor of public
and administration we should take federal kind of government. He said that the Philippines would take a
period of no less than 10 years to make a successful transition to federalism, involving a period of
consolidation of several regions and intensive socioeconomic development in each of consolidated
regions. Advantages of federal government are the following: (1) It ensures that government remains
close to the people because the state government argue that they are more in tune with the daily needs
and aspirations of people especially relevant to small and isolated places. (2) It encourages development
of the nation in a decentralized and regional manner and allows for unique and innovative methods for
attacking social, economic and political problems. (3) It provides a barrier to the dominance of the
majority, while the disadvantages are the following: (1) It can lead to duplication of government and
inefficient, over-lapping or contradictory policies in different parts of the country. (2) It can lead to
inequality between the states and lead to unhealthy competition and rivalry between them. (3) It cal
lead to over-government that will result to corruption. I have cited both faces of federal government in
order to inform all of you that federal government is a good system of government and a good example
of successful federal kind of government is the United States of America. But the question here is do we
really need it? Is it advisable for our country to change the government into federal?

On my point of view, we do not need here a change of government all we need is to strengthen the
centralized government. And also it’s very expensive to have a federal kind of government. We have no
enough funds because we are still paying our debts. We have already LGU’S and NGO’S to monitor the
needs of people that have a power equal to the national government. We are making our situation
complicated if we change our present government into federal. Lastly, the Philippines is a third world
country and according to survey last September 16, 2006 we have 25 only of the world’s 193 countries
have federal political system, and 3 out of 25 is belong in Asia. It only indicates that a third world country
like us is not ready and cannot afford the federal government.