A round-table discussion on Federalism has ensued before audiences from the government, business society, academe, and civil society in Davao city with the goal to build understanding on how the Duterte Administration can achieve this system shift.

WITH the Philippines’s continuing economic growth during the last six years, the country’s business leaders believe it is time to focus on inclusive growth under the new administration.

“Inclusive growth will have a true meaning for the country in a sense that not only the economic growth of 6.5 percent or 7 percent will continue, but how we address the 25 percent of the population still living below poverty line,” Asian Institute of Management (AIM) President Dr. Jikyeong Kang said during the AIM for Change discussion at Fairmont Hotel Makati on Wednesday last week.

Benjamin Franklin, in 1789, once famously said: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

This article will ponder upon the question of death and federalism; taxes will be taken up in later articles.

DAVAO - Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte's new economic team on Monday promised sweeping changes to boost infrastructure, fix traffic woes, improve investment frameworks and maintain the country's robust economic growth.

Third among 22 most crony-ridden economies, Philippine GDP went four-fifths to firms owned or favored by the ruling party.

Crony capitalism is under attack globally, but worsened in the Philippines in the past two years, The Economist magazine reports. India and Brazil have jailed billionaires who made piles from repeated sleazy government contracts.

Rodrigo Duterte won the Philippine presidency in a blaze of hard-line rhetoric -- an outsider who will stamp out crime and corruption. But his power base is tied to the nation's oldest political camps, including that of ex-dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Davao City — President-elect Rodrigo R. Duterte and his economic team will present the country’s economic situation and the incoming administration’s 10-point socio-economic agenda in the “Sulong Pilipinas” economic forum that opens here today at the SMX Convention Center.

A Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) may be less expensive and time-consuming but President-elect Rodrigo Duterte prefers a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) to frame a new charter and to convert the country’s unitary government to a federal one, according to Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez.

MAKATI, PH – Newly-elected Davao del Norte First District Representative Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez, Speaker for the 17th Congress meets with the CDPI President, Lito Monico Lorenzana along with some members of the 2005 Consultative Commission and Amb. Francis Chua of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) to discuss on the impending Constitutional Initiatives of the President Duterte.

Incoming President Rodrigo R. Duterte held his first “Cabinet” meeting at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) guesthouse in Panacan district, Davao City, where he named a dozen more members to his Cabinet and detailed the policies of his new government anchored on a campaign promise to fight criminality, corruption, and illegal drugs, a day after he was proclaimed by Congress.