A Federal Philippines?

REGIONAL STRATEGIC AND POLITICAL STUDIES PROGRAMME SEMINAR

About the Seminar

President Rodrigo Duterte came to office in June 2016 promising to seek to turn the Philippines into a federal state and alter the current presidential system. In January, President Duterte created the Consultative Commission to Review the 1987 Constitution to recommend the necessary constitutional revisions to introduce this new state structure and regime type.

If successful, these would be the most important changes to the Philippine political system since Independence. A shift to federalism and a less presidential political system have long been advocated as necessary means to address many of the Philippines’ governance problems but also raise a large number of fundamental questions. This seminar, organized with the assistance of the University of the Philippines Alumni Association Singapore, will look at these proposed changes to the Philippines and the hopes and questions it has sparked.

About the Speaker

Associate Professor Eduardo Araral from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is both an academic and a practitioner. He is a resource person to the Consultative Commission to Review the 1987 Constitution; a member of the ruling party’s federalism study group where he wrote two chapters in their federalism proposal; the senior adviser for the University of the Philippines’ College of Law Project on Constitutional Reform which advises the Consultative Commission Chairman Renato Puno; and a lead editor for the recently released Ateneo de Manila Press book Debate on Federal Philippines: A Citizens’ Handbook.

At the Lee Kuan Yew School, he is currently Co-Director of the Institute of Water Policy. He is also Faculty Director for the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Public Policy. Ed obtained his PhD Degree in Public Policy from Indiana University-Bloomington on a Fulbright PhD Scholarship with Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics) as his supervisor. Ed has received numerous international and local awards and recognitions including the Pamana ng Lahi Presidential Award (2016) for Overseas Filipinos.

Registration
To register, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents2@iseas.edu.sg by 11 April 2018.