SENATOR Juan Edgardo Angara will be in Bacolod City today, March 2, for the general assembly of some 1,700 barangay captains from Iloilo in SMX Convention Center.
Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Government, is pushing for reforms under the Local Government Code to ensure a meaningful equitable distribution of resources and powers against the backdrop of charter change that will pave the way to shift to federalism.
“While the wheels of charter change have already started to turn, there are alternative paths of reform worth pursuing, where we can still achieve the same goals of local autonomy and proper allocation of collective resources—perhaps in an even more expeditious manner,” Angara said.
Proponents of federalism claimed that such progressive form of government would be most beneficial for Filipinos in terms of spreading the country’s economic gains to the countryside and raising rural incomes.
But Angara said the proposed federal government still had a long way to go in the legislative process.
It may also require a complete overhaul of the 1987 Constitution, which is implemented in a unitary form of government, he said.
He said his committee will discuss the ways on how the people’s funds flow back to their local governments so that in turn more can be channeled into projects and services that serve their benefit and uplift their welfare. (PR)