Fraternal greetings to Partido Federal ng Pilipinas

Statement of Congratulations

Never in our country’s history had our people been given the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the making of our fundamental law than today under President Rodrigo Duterte.

In 1896, our country was a colonial slave of Spain and our people were waging a revolution; in 1935, our country was a colonial captive of America and our people were not free; in 1973, our country was under martial law and freedom of expression was curtailed; in 1987, our country was under a revolutionary government and the situation was abnormal.

During the past two years under the leadership of President Duterte, the nation has been in open, democratic, transparent discussion of changing our Constitution. It is one that will ultimately shift our system of government from a highly-centralized unitary system to federalism.

We have made a lot of ground towards this end, popularizing federalism and succeeded in having a draft Constitution prepared by the President’s appointed Constitutional Commission advocating a Bayanihan Federalism giving Power to the Regions and Power to the People. We firmly believe that this shift will bring about more direct democracy, greater people’s participation, better services, faster rural growth, and more development in our regions.

However, the ruling elites and obstructionist traditional politicians have been busy as well to thwart our march towards genuine change. They will hang on tough to retain their powers, privileges and perks to frustrate the long-clamored shift to federalism.

It is in this context that the formation of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) is a giant step to continue our common desire to push for federalism, to wage an education drive in all sectors, to pit our leaders against those who are against federalism in free and open electoral contests, and count our successes one by one until total victory for our cause.

The Hugpong Federal Movement of the Philippines, the grassroots movement for federalism, wish to extend our fraternal greetings of congratulations to PFP and to its officials led by Jayvee Hinlo as President and Tom Lantion as Secretary-General.

Mabuhay! Sama-sama sa Tagumpay ng Pederalismo!