Federal systems: A comparison of the federal Republic of Germany and the proposed federal Republic of the Philippines

• Main Author: Alano, Don Jon
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2004
• Subjects: Federal government > Germany; Germany > Politics and government; Federal government > Philippines
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/1940
• Institution: De La Salle University

It is at this point where the Researcher is asked to sum up his observations of the two polities in this Thesis based on two general themes held in common as features of their respective democracies. In the same wise as in the first two sentences quoted in Chapter One, we saw resemblance between Germany and that which is proposed for the Philippines on a surface level. We might as well all aver that the two are alike. However, that is not the case. Even when both republics were considered as federal states with parliamentary governments, the specifications required in their respective constitutions were enough to distinguish one from the other. The preceding chapters gave us a description of Germany and the Philippines as federal republics and as parliamentary democracies, and how one differed from the other in practice, regardless of the Philippines being a hypothetical federation. While the essential similarities do exist, federalism and parliamentarism, particularly the latter, are different in practice as far as the two states are concerned. German federalism has its roots in being formerly independent entities which comprised the Holy Roman Empire. While there were different polities to deal with at the time, there was a common language that helped make the transition into a Bund easier. Likewise, the history of each of the sixteen German Landero helped maintain the regional boundaries as they are today. One other thing worth noting, at least for consideration, is that the five Lander that made up the former GDR had to be revived upon re-unification in 1990. The Philippines may be seen to share the experience of the GDR when the latter was absorbed into the fold of the FRG. The re-formation of the eastern Lander, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, may serve as a model for the Philippine transition into a federal republic. There are reservations, however, in this line. There is an absence of a former federal state in the Philippines which may result in a transitory lag. The only bases seen for the subdivision of the current unitary state into a federation are the fragmented geography and the multitude of languages spoken from Aparri to Jolo. A multilingual and multicultural country as a federation in Asia may not be far from feasible, if one were to look at neighboring Malaysia which is also a federal republic (in a manner of speaking). However, there seems to be a more difficult problem facing the formation of the states of the Philippines is in the fusion of the over eighty provinces of spread unevenly across the islands into ten cohesive states, and the fate of the old provincial distinctions once federalism is in force.