Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said yesterday that President Duterte’s economic team is backing the proposed federated government, but the draft Constitutions needs further discussions as it has “dire, irreversible economic consequences.”
Dominguez said that there an urgency of “opening more discussions on this proposed document crafted by the Consultative Committee tasked to review the 1987 Constitution.”
The Finance chief pointed out that the draft federal Charter contains “ambiguous provisions” on the allocation of government expenditures for the would-be federated government and its federated regions.
“We welcome a discussion on the draft so that it is clear and unambiguous. We do not want the revenue assignment and the expenditure assignment to be misunderstood, as what happened in the recent case involving the Internal Revenue Allotment,” Dominguez said.
The economic manager, in particular, noted that while the 50:50 provision on revenue sharing is part of the proposed Constitution, the other aspect of a federated government, which is the spending responsibility, was not mentioned in the draft. (Chino S. Leyco)
