FALSE

President Rodrigo Duterte set aside his campaign for a federal form of government because Filipinos were not ready to accept the change and this might affect his war on illegal drugs.

It was not, as senatorial aspirant and actor Robin Padilla wrongly claimed, because Vice President Leni Robredo and the political opposition blocked it.

Duterte had made the shift to federalism one of his key agenda, saying this would help address insurgency and weed out corruption.

In 2018, he formed a Consultative Committee to draft a federal constitution. The House of Representatives was mostly supportive of the proposed change but the Senate was lukewarm to it.

However, Duterte first expressed his intention to set aside his federalism agenda in 2019 and instead push for a constitutional reform to “change this nation.”

Read the full story on FactRakers.

Share this

Share on Pinterest Share on LinkedIn Share on Reddit

FactRakers is a Philippines-based fact-checking initiative of journalism majors at the University of the Philippines-Diliman working under the supervision of Associate Professor Yvonne T. Chua of the University of the Philippines’ Journalism Department. Associate Professor Ma. Diosa Labiste, also of the Journalism Department, serves as editorial consultant.

The name of the initiative, coined from the words “fact” and “raker,” is inspired by the term “muckrakers,” first used in the early 1900s by American president Theodore Roosevelt to express his annoyance at progressive, reform-minded journalists at the time.

factrakers.org