Federalism and Food Security

Federalism, Food Security and Philippine Biodiversity Conservation
Philip Camara, Federalist Forum of the Philippines, May 22, 2008

Consider that the Philippine Cordillera Region's mountain ranges and river systems supply the critical water maintenance functions for 3 other regions in Northern Luzon: Ilocos, Cagayan and Central Luzon. Cordillera watersheds service a total of 1.8 million hectares of agricultural land, land whose productivity directly depends on regulated water flow from the watersheds. Compromised watersheds spell crop-destroying floods or insufficient irrigation water with fickle weather patterns created by a carbon-charged, warming climate.

The recent Philippine Daily Inquirer feature titled: Cordillera Watersheds in Grave Peril highlights what is not readily apparent: the current dysfunctional Unitary political structure of the Philippines contribution to food insecurity, poverty, environmental degradation and loss of unique-to-the-country biodiversity.

Watersheds are fragile highlands, sloppy high-water absorbing lands filled with native trees, plants and animals that together regulate the healthy storage and flow of rain and surface water and maintains an ecosystem that ensures a balance is attained for the health, not just of the forest but of the productive farm lands and the urban utility (water and power) services as well.

Under our Unitary Philippine government the main determining thrusts of what happens to the Cordillera watersheds is outside the control of the Cordillera region. There is no autonomous Executive, Legislative and Judicial system for the region, unlike the case if the Philippines were a Federal country where all 3 branches of government would exist autonomously, directly collecting its fiscal resources from its state citizens and being accountable for the management of its territory and the welfare of its citizens.

I recall in the late 70's when the National Government wanted to dam the mighty Chico River that would have submerged large areas of traditional communities to provide just a single commodity: irrigation water for farmlands. There was resistance to this massive World Bank funded project at the cost of many local lives, the best known of whom was the life of Macling Dulag of Bugnay village.

Today, the National Government is hell bent on carving out mining areas that are detrimental as well to the watershed health and there is a blind eye turned to the local unabated timber poaching, conversion of mossy forests to vegetable lands and unregulated and controlled forest fires all together pushing this Cordillera watershed cradle to exhibit the initial signs of desertification and drying rivers. Drying rivers that will in turn become ranging currents in a downpour destroying property and lives in a major storm.

A fully functioning Cordillera State under a Federal Philippines would be in a better position to ensure an integrated management view of this very critical resource from the balanced exploitation of its resources, resource regeneration, control of local land use and the balancing of traditional practices with the modern requirements of an expanding population and appropriate urbanism.

A Cordillera State would generate resources through negotiation with the Ilocos, Cagayan and Central Luzon Regions for the ecosystem services provided by the sound management of the watersheds that would clearly be a "win-win" situation given that a more productive farm land systems in the lowland can more than make up for the food requirements of the expanding Cordillera population.

Cordillera tourism would boom from the expanding incomes of the people in the surrounding regions as there would be less funds used to mitigate floods, build and frequently repair expensive irrigation systems, and health expenditures.

More importantly, a Federal Philippines would allow each region to optimize the mix of land use, development, extractive activity, population growth and the glue that holds it all together, local culture and knowledge that would improve not just he economic lot of the citizens but their quality of life as well.

Our Unitary Government is wasteful in that it maintains a huge Regional Bureaucracy loyal to the National Government but whose perspective is fragmented into different "line" agencies that no matter how they try, will never ever come close to the wisdom of an integral Regional Government with autonomous fiscal resources and political institutions.

Jose Rizal predicted that the Philippines would become a Federal country in time, and would be followed by a period of prosperity. Its about time we honor the "First Filipino" and lend our voices to conversion of our country to a Federal Republic.