Why Cebu can't be the next Singapore . . .

It’s exactly a month when tropical storm Sendong devastated Northern Mindanao, destroying homes in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan City and Dumaguete City. But Sendong did more than just destroy homes and kill the poor people living in those areas that shouldn’t have been built on sandbars where the river would overflow… it also exposed the reality that despite a Presidential order on all out log ban, it really hasn’t stopped the cutting of logs. The reason of course is far distance between the seat of government in Metro Manila and Mindanao.

This is why I’m not surprised at all that many people especially the Muslims in Mindanao want to be independent. During the Martial Law years, when the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) was a political monolith, there were only two other political parties (you can Google this, just type Interim Batasang Pambansa on April 1978) aside from the KBL, they were the Mindanao Alliance of Ruben Canoy who coined the Mindanao Dollar and the Pusyon Bisaya who dared challenge the political party of the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship. But with the two EDSA Revolt happening in 1986 and 2001 we thought that there would be reforms to streamline our political system. Alas that didn’t happen, which is why we’re still in a political mess today.

If Cebuanos supported the candidacy of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during the 2004 elections, it was due to the fact that she agreed that there was a need to change the Charter and install a federal form of governance. No other candidate, including FPJ had such a plan that would have uplifted the peoples outside the sphere of Metro Manila. Alas, it was only lip service on the part of GMA who probably used it to gain more votes.

During her final years as president, when PGMA came to Cebu, I asked her why didn’t she push for the Charter as we thought she would… she merely replied that there was no time anymore for that. In short, she didn’t find it important. In fairness to her, the president created a Consultative Commission headed by Dr. Jose “Pepe” Abueva to look into the adoption of a federal form of government. It came up with very positive results that showed the eagerness of the Filipinos living south of Luzon that wanted this shift to a federal system… but once more, it was mere lip service.

We have repeatedly asked for economic, social and political reforms from the central government but ended with only promises from our politicians. This is why Mindanao is called “The Land of Promise”. We are only important (especially to our Senators) during the elections and forgotten until the next elections. In the past, the central government, which we call Imperial Manila would always have someone from the South to be the running mate of a Presidential candidate who comes from the North or Manila. That sign of respect is no longer in practice. Right now our President comes from Manila and our Vice-President comes from Makati.

In the Philippine Senate today, we have only a few Senators who come from the South. We Cebuanos cannot even claim Sen. Serge Osmeña III, as one of our own because he always says that he is Ilonggo! So there really is no Cebuano representation in the Senate. If the Boston Tea Party had a slogan “No taxation without representation” then perhaps Cebuanos ought to start looking for out of the box solutions to this glaring problem.

Yesterday the Senate Impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona began and we can only hope that it would bring this nation to the reality that it is unbridled ugly politics that prevents the Philippines from catching up with our ASEAN neighbors. Twenty years ago, Tomas Osmeña campaigned for the mayorship of Cebu City with a slogan, “A City Second to None”. It won him an unprecedented three terms as mayor and additional terms as Congressman… but his promise for Cebu City has not materialized. That slogan merely gave him a solid political power base.

With a potential trouble brewing in Manila, perhaps now is the right time to ask, “Can Cebu be the next Singapore?” Personally, I doubt it for as long as we are linked to a centralized system of government and with the future of the Philippines clouded in uncertainty and with the looming possibility of another political upheaval that could result in the Impeachment trial of CJ Corona, I dare say that we must now look for other solutions because we have ran out of patience. We were second to Japan after World War II and 25 years after the EDSA revolt were still going nowhere. So where do we go?

Last Sunday, The Philippine STAR reported that Scotland wanted to be independent from Great Britain. Shades of the Quebecers in Canada. You should read that article because they are planning to have a referendum by 2014 asking the Scots to be an Independent state. If Czechoslovakia had a political divorce and became the Czech Republic and Slovakia because of culture and language, then Cebuanos ought to consider this option.

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