By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
There was a humongous traffic in town due to the parade in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Cordillera Administrative Region.
That is right. After 35 years we are still an administrative region. Not autonomous.
As had been expressed by some officials, the President might facilitate the process. While under the law what he can do is only to certify as urgent the passage of the autonomy bill, he can do a lot more as head of the government. Let us see if he really loves the Cordillerans who really love him as shown by his votes in the region during the last election for President. Is there really a Solid North? Is he “solid” with us?
Even if the autonomy bill will be passed into law if our leaders will not really campaign hard for the people to approve the law in a plebiscite, everything will be useless. Note that autonomy was rejected by the Cordillerans in two plebiscites.
Will there be a difference now? There might be as there is now a greater awareness as to the benefits of having an autonomous region.
But as a friend posted in our UP Los Banos alumni group page, 35 years had already passed and had our leaders been thoroughly explaining the benefits of having a Cordillera Autonomous Region to elementary kids during those years, we might not even need to campaign now for its approval in a plebiscite.
Autonomy will not, however, solve our socio-economic and political problems. Things might even get worse at the outset.
Take for instance corruption. There will be more funds under the control of our local political leaders. In an autonomous setup, it might be easier for them to steal such funds. There will certainly be controls regarding that, but rest assured they will find ways of circumvention as they had been doing in the past.
Adopting such effective controls will take time. There will be mistakes along the way but these will be part and parcel of the birth pains we will have to endure.
I think that the most difficult stumbling block to realize a progressive autonomous region is the development of a “love for the Cordillera.” Some sort of a localized version of “nationalism.” Certainly it will take many years or decades to develop that.
But since it will take a long time to get there, we might as well start now by having a CAR, an autonomous region.**
