“‘BALIK Probinsya’ to benefit education,” one of The Manila Times’ headline stories on May 3, quoted Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go in a report by Javier Ismael. The idea sprouts in consequence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. It is not new and is devoid of an essential element. It was in the 1998 presidential elections when former Cebu governor Emilio “Lito” Osmeña campaigned for rural development under his political party Probinsya Muna Development Initiative. In 2009, he reiterated development for the provinces and/or the countryside when he ran for senator. As the prominent figure behind the booming economy of Cebu or “Ceboom,” it is no wonder then that Osmeña endorsed President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 when the latter campaigned for federalism. But decentralization without devolution of power disillusions the dream and defeats the purpose of provincial development. Federalism drafts bear the burden of proving itself anti-political dynasty to promote emancipatory politics. The political feud, however, is not between Manila-centered political parties and those from the Visayas and Mindanao but elite politics versus “new politics,” which is mass-based.
Regionalized minimum wage and loosening environmental laws may partly expedite “development” in the provinces. The problem, however, may not lie in contradicting structure between unitary and federal but in the structural sickness of the political economy driven by neoliberal ideology. World-renowned intellectuals e.g., Richard Wolff, David Harvey and Noam Chomsky are pointing out what Heather Brown calls the “crassness of contemporary capitalism.”