Duterte told to fire Dominguez, Pernia if he’s serious about federal shift

A member of the Consultative Committee tasked to draft a federal constitution on Thursday urged President Rodrigo Duterte to fire Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia if he was serious in pushing a new system of government.

Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, the dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law, made the remark in a Facebook post after Dominguez and Pernia expressed their misgivings about the federal system of government as proposed in the Con-com's draft constitution.

"Let's stop fooling ourselves. If Dominguez and Pernia, in their official capacities, speak loudly against federalism, then the question should be asked in all earnestness whether the President is for it or not," Aquino said.

Aquino said Dominguez and Pernia could only be paving the way for a subsequent Presidential announcement that he had been advised by his economic managers that federalism was not good for the economy.

"Let us be clear now and let our President speak with a convincing baritone that he wishes Congress to pass a federal constitution—if indeed he wishes it so rather than in quavering falsetto," Aquino said.

"And if he favors federalism let him sack Dominguez and Pernia or command them to keep their traps shut," he added.

Aquino said the freedom of expression did not apply to Cabinet officials "in respect to policy."

"Enough of double-talk. If the President is now cool to federalism let him give the order to abandon the federalist ship," Aquino said.

"Then all of us fools who wrote the draft and defended it with all our might will know that we have been taken for a ride—for a very expensive ride—but we shall at least have the chance to abandon ship before it is scuttled!" he added.

Pernia in a TV interview said it was unlikely that the regions would be ready for federalism and warned the momentum of infrastructure improvement in the regions would be disrupted.

He added that financing a federal setup culd raise the fiscal deficit to six percent of the country’s gross domestic product, nearly double than the target deficit cap of 3.2 percent for 2019 by the inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee.

At a Senate hearing, Dominguez said the federal charter "leaves much to be desired "from the fiscal point of view."

Dominguez indicated that it was not clear in the federal constitution which entity would pay for the national debt, spend for the military, for the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Central Bank.

He said he was told that the federal states would share the expenses but added that he didn't see any such provision in the draft constitution.

“There are a lot of issues that need to be worked out and it is good that it is being discussed publicly right now because that’s just one of the issues that we see from the fiscal point of view,” Dominguez said.

“If Ernie (Pernia of the National Economic and Development Authority) is right, if we don’t manage this correctly, this can end up to be a fiscal nightmare. So, I think the legislature, in its wisdom, can sort those issues out,” he said.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque has said that Duterte was pushing through with the proposed shift to a federal government despite the misgivings raised by his economic managers. —NB, GMA News