This document analyzes France's government model as a potential framework for modifying the Philippine government system. It provides background on France and the Philippines, including their unitary state structures and decentralization programs. France uses a semi-presidential system with strong presidential powers balanced by a prime minister. It has successfully decentralized through transferring resources and employees to regional and local levels. This document considers if adopting aspects of France's model could help address issues in the Philippines like conflict, unequal development, and corruption, while maintaining a unitary structure instead of shifting to a federal system.

1. ON ADAPTING THE FRENCH MODEL IN MODIFYING THE PHILIPPINE
GOVERNMENT
A case analysis presented to
Atty. Antonio Ligon
Faculty, Graduate School of Business
By
Jennifer Nam-on
In final fulfillment of the requirements of the course
Business Law (BNG520M)
Aug 24, 2016

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Table of Contents
I. Statement of the Problem ......................................................................................... 3
II. Objectives.................................................................................................................... 3
III. Background and Purpose of the Study
A. Federalism, Decentralization and the Philippine Agenda .............................. 3
B. The French Government Setting ....................................................................... 4
C. The Philippine Government Setting................................................................... 7
IV. Review of Related Literature .................................................................................... 7
V. Conclusion................................................................................................................... 8
VI. Recommendation ....................................................................................................... 9
VII. References ................................................................................................................10

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I. Statement of the Problem
What characteristics make France’s government an ideal model in modifying the
Philippine’s current regime?
II. Objectives
 To identify France’s characteristics of government as a model of changing
Philippine politics
 To determine the implications of adapting these characteristics into the current
Philippine government setting
III. Background and Purpose of the Study
A. Federalism, Decentralization and the Philippine Agenda
Buchanan (1996) defines federalism as the ideal structure of politics for a large
community, defined by territory or by numbers of citizens, with the overriding
objective of protecting individual sovereignty against political intimidation. He
states in part that a central government authority must be strong, but it should not
be allowed to extend beyond the limits constitutionally defined. He adds that
other political-collective activities should be carried out, if at all, by separate
state-provincial units that exist side-by-side, as competitors of sorts, in the
inclusive government.
Lane (2012) indicates that the nature of a state as either unitary or federal is
neutral to specific government characteristics like democracy or political
decentralization. He cites France as a hallmark of a centralized unitary state that
has recently gone through a successful process of political decentralization. He
concludes that the unitary state model has become overshadowed by the political
and economic theory of federalism. He asserts that the measures claimed to be
conducive under federal dispensation, namely decentralization, democracy and
economic efficiency, exist in and are highly achieved by several unitary states
that include the Nordic countries and France. On the other hand, he lists
federalist states that are otherwise unstable like Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia and
Sudan.
During his bid for the presidency, the currently elected Philippine president
alluded to adapting Federalism as one of his major programs of government. In
the series of presidential debates, he indicated that the long-standing conflict in
Mindanao can be dissipated by giving the region the representation it needed
and called for equality in budget appropriations among regions; a break from
concentrating government spending in the central government’s location that is
Metro Manila and Luzon. Additionally, he was strongly opposed to corruption in
all levels of government. Alexeev and Habodaszova (as cited by Teobaldelli,

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2011) provides evidence that decentralization reduces the level of corruption and
increases the provision of local productivity-enhancing public goods.
Until recently, the move to Federalism was further clarified by the President
during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) directing charter change by
Constitutional Assembly through the country’s elected representatives after
recognizing the huge cost entailed in a Constitutional Convention. Related press
releases that ensued would identify using the French model for governmental
change.
This study looks into the French model of political decentralization. France as a
unitary state takes the subject of federalism out of the picture.
B. The French Government Setting
France is a unitary state under a semi-presidential form of government. Sartori,
1994 and Elgie, 1999 as cited by Passarelli (2010) state that in a semi-
presidential government, the president is directly elected and coexists with a
prime minister (PM) who is accountable to the parliament.
The president's important position is based on the facts that he is elected by
universal suffrage in an election requiring an absolute majority and that he is
given decisive reserved powers by France’s 1958 constitution. Among these
powers include appointing the prime minister and, on the latter's
recommendation, the members of the Cabinet. He also terminates the functions
of the premier when the latter presents to him the resignation of his government,
according to the letter of Article 8 of the constitution -or, as the article has been
interpreted in the first twenty years of the Republic, when the president desires it.
Furthermore, the president presides over the meetings of the Council of
Ministers. These powers are particularly relevant to any discussion of
cohabitation. Moreover, the president may dissolve the National Assembly,
although he cannot do it twice in the same year or during a time of emergency.
Article 5 provides for general roles of "arbitrator" to provide "for the regular
functioning of the public authorities and the continuity of the State" and as
"protector of the independence of the nation." In Article 13, the president is given
the option to refuse his signature to ordinances that Parliament can authorize the
government to issue for the implementation of its program. Article 15 says that
the president is the chief of the armies. The Council of Ministers (CM) is the
decision-making body of the government, comprising the president, the PM and
the ministers. The president presides over the CM (Article 9) and determines its
agenda. Yet the PM may, in exceptional cases, stand in for him or her as
chairman of a CM session by virtue of an express delegation of powers for a
specific agenda (Article 21.4). In Article 133, the president may dismiss the
Government only to safeguard the proper operation of democratic institutions,
and may remove the PM from office (by appointing and installing a replacement),

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but can appoint and remove government officeholders only at the suggestion of
the PM. (Poulard, 1990)
Article 21 identifies the roles of the Prime Minister who 'shall direct the actions of
the Government [and] be responsible for national defense, [as well as] ensure
the implementation of legislation. [In addition], he shall have power to make
regulations and shall make appointments to civil and military posts'. Article 34
limits the subjects in which parliament may legislate, however, Article 37 granted
the government the power to act through decrees in all matters not indicated in
Article 34. The government can avoid the usual second reading of a bill in each
house of parliament (navette) by invoking the Declaration of Urgency set out in
Article 45.2. Article 38 allows the government to legislate through ordinances, for
a limited time, within issue areas that normally require laws to be debated by
parliament. This protects deputies from, for example, voting for unpopular laws.
The package vote (vote bloqué) in Article 44.3 states that government can
require a house of parliament to decide, by a single vote, on all or part of the text
under discussion, retaining only the amendments proposed or accepted by the
government. (Passarelli, 2010)
In the article by Poulard (1990), he related that after the legislative election of
March 1986, the French political system went through an unprecedented
experiment that most Frenchmen called cohabitation – the division and the
sharing of governmental powers between a Socialist president of the Republic,
Franqois Mitterrand, and a prime minister of the Right, Jacques Chirac,
supported by a majority in the National Assembly. He then describes cohabitation
as more than a situation where the president and the prime minister are leaders
of opposing political coalitions with antagonistic programs. He stresses that it
"implies that the President keeps the prerogatives which the constitution gives
him, but also that the Prime Minister governs according to his own views." In this
situation, the president, while no longer predominant, remains nevertheless a
strong president. Some say, following the constitution, "[he] becomes an
arbitrator."
Lane (2012), states that France used to be considered as the model of unitarism
– heavily centralized around Paris, Jacobin in law and government, and
Napoleonic in hierarchy with prefectural uniformity. Currently, France has
transformed itself by embarking upon a process of decentralization and de-
concentration without the transaction costs that are typical of so-called
competitive federalism. He adds that if France can accept modernity and thrive
from regional democracy and local capacity strengthening, then other unitary
states can modernize their state format without the institutions of federalism.
Observations in the study by Lane (2012) indicate that the strong process of
decentralization and of de-concentration in France resulted to 1. the growth of
the tax resources of the so-called localities – regions, departments and
communes, e.g. the most recent available figures indicate that the taxation of the

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localities account for 10 percent of GDP, 2. the expansion of the number of public
sector employees working at the regional, provincial or local levels; and 3. the
massive transfer of resources from the central government to its employees at
the regional, provincial and local levels. He supports his observation by citing
Wollman (2009) who shows that public employment in the localities has
expanded considerably, amounting to some 50 percent of all public sector
employees. Additionally, as state employees work at the regional, provincial and
local level – de-concentration has increased as hospitals and schools have
expanded. He mentions that both of these processes strengthen sub-national
levels of government, as networking - formal or informal - between the
employees of the localities and the other public employees becomes more and
frequent citing Reiter, et al (2010).
Thoenig (as cited in Lane, 2012) adds that his analysis of the complexity of these
double processes - political decentralization and de-concentration, establishes
that 'Sub-national affairs in France are handled by an exceptionally high number
of political public authorities all of which have different legal statuses and operate
at different geographic levels’. ‘To some extent, then, the most powerful political
party in France is neither the party of the President of the Republic nor the
opposition party. This social configuration regroups informally, so that most of the
grands élus for a "party" in which right- and left-wing politicians are equals and
colleagues. It benefits from having a key influence in one specific policy domain:
territorial government'.
Varshney (2014) mentions several publications on modern France as the best
historical example where the territorial boundaries of a state coincide with the
cultural boundaries of a nation. He cites Eugen Weber in his classic 1976 study
Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914, who
showed how the French central state, using military conscription and compulsory
public schooling, turned various regional identities into a single Frenchmen
identity. As part of this project, the diversities that once so vividly characterized
France were deliberately and systematically flattened. Varshney adds that these
diversities as reported in Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth,
Reality, E.J. Hobsbawm describes that at the time of the French Revolution more
than half of all those living in France spoke no French at all, much less spoke the
language correctly. The Revolution of 1789 abolished the monarchy and reduced
the role of religion placing 'Reason' at the centre of French society. This further
reinforced the role of the state in French society. It gave birth to 'la tradition
républicaine', focused on the 'one and indivisible' republic, a view which would
permeate France (Dyson and Featherstone as cited by Quaglia, 2004).
Cole (also cited by Lane, 2012) focuses upon the decisive process of
decentralization and de-concentration as capacity building at the local and
regional levels. One of the chief objectives of political decentralization and de-
concentration has been to off-load an overburdened central government and
bureaucracy and to increase information as well as flexibility in public-service

7. 7
provision by trusting and empowering local providers. Cole states: 'Local and
regional authorities have become entrepreneurial as they have gained
experience and confidence. Local and regional authorities have learnt from their
own past errors, as well as from comparing their own experiences in policy fields
such as education, welfare and transport'. And the local and regional
policymakers enter into policy networks with the state agencies at the local level,
which creates a new pattern of multi-level governance, horizontally as well as
vertically, including EU coordination projects. French decentralization has
supported the emergence of strong regional centers that can balance Paris such
as, for example, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Caen, Strasbourg and Lille.
Based on the successful French model, it can be said that the unitary state
format is more adaptable than conventional federalism.
C. Philippine Government Setting
The Philippines is a unitary state under a presidential form of government. The
1987 Constitution re-established the presidential system from the 1935
Constitution as one of then President Corazon Aquino’s steps to restore
democratic order after the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship. This presidential
order was patterned along the American political system due to colonial origin.
Deviating from the American model of federalism, however, the Philippines is a
unitary state. (Ruland, 2003)
Similar to France, the Philippines as a unitary state has a current decentralization
program under its local government code. The Philippine decentralization
program is described as one of the most far reaching in the developing world. A
long tradition of political-administrative centralism existed in the Philippines that
was initially challenged by the concept of local autonomy, enshrined in the
Constitution of 1987 and later in the Local Government Code of 1991 (Republic
Act 7160). This was the fifth attempt since 1946 to empower the four levels of
local government with political and administrative authority (Yap and Sator as
cited by Guess, 2005).
The Local Government Code of 1991 expanded the responsibilities and authority
of the 76 provinces, 1,540 municipalities, 66 cities, and 42,000 barangays
(precincts) in the country. The major change was the expansion of city,
municipality, and barangay jurisdiction over the planning and provision of
hospitals, social welfare, environmental protection, public infrastructure, and
zoning. The central government would henceforth support or supervise rather
than dictate or control local activities in these areas (Miller as cited by Guess,
2005). Additionally, a year earlier in 1990, the Philippines recognized limited
shared rule, when the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) saw its
organic statute reformed. (Shair-Rosenfield et al, 2014)
IV. Review of Related Literature

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In his study on decentralization of governance and development, Bardhan (2002)
notes that it is often suggested as a way of reducing the role of the state in general,
by fragmenting central authority and introducing more intergovernmental competition
and checks and balances. It is viewed as a way to make government more
responsive and efficient. He adds that in a world of rampant ethnic conflicts and
separatist movements, decentralization is also regarded as a way of diffusing social
and political tensions and ensuring local cultural and political autonomy.
A decentralization comparison of Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines by Guess
(2005) suggests that governments must respond to local opportunities by building on
existing cultural practices and using them as support mechanisms. He proposes that
to effectively respond to the shorter-term issues of institutional, fiscal, managerial,
and political changes required for effective decentralization, is to follow the path of
the Philippines, with (1) a broad supervisory institutional structure, (2) substantial
international inputs into the development of the legal and regulatory framework, (3)
innovative capacity-building exercises and institutions, (4) strong interest in
monitoring and evaluation of the devolution program, (5) provision of sufficient local
fiscal autonomy, (6) efforts to streamline local government operations, and (7) efforts
to replace input budgeting and legal management with systems driven by
performance incentives and targets.
In his article on the ongoing Philippine constitutional debate, Ruland (2003) asserts
that occasional proposals to introduce a semi-presidential type of government
modeled after the French Fifth Republic, among others, is likewise problematic. He
cites Sartori who believes that semi-presidentialism is more flexible than pure
presidential and pure parliamentary systems and contends that many of the much
criticized features of presidentialism will not be eliminated by shifting to a semi-
presidential government. He further presents the difficulty of seeing how a system of
dual power center would meet the litmus test of cohabitation in the Philippines. He
argues that such a shift does not necessarily solve the problems blamed on the
1987 Constitution, such as the rigidities of the presidential term, executive-legislative
gridlock, presidential concentration of power, political instability, a weak party
system, populism, and patronage. He proposes incremental reforms by amending
the 1987 Constitution to solve these problems, without scrapping the presidential
system of government.
V. Conclusion
Based on my study of related academic journals and articles, it is evident that except
for France’s semi-presidential form of government, the Philippines like France, is a
unitary state that is similarly currently decentralized in its adoption of the Local
Government Code of 1991.
To reiterate Lane (2012), unitary states can thrive from regional democracy and local
capacity strengthening without the institutions of federalism. Article II Section 25 of

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the Philippine Constitution states that ‘The state shall ensure the autonomy of local
governments.’ This is supported by Section 2 of the Philippine Local Government
Code of 1991 that states – ‘the territorial and political subdivisions of the State shall
enjoy genuine and meaningful local autonomy to enable them to attain their fullest
development as self-reliant communities and make them more effective partners in
the attainment of national goals. Toward this end, the State shall provide for a more
responsive accountable local government structure instituted through a system of
decentralization whereby local government units shall be given more powers,
authority, responsibilities, and resources. The process of decentralization shall
proceed from the national government to the local government units’.
To agree with Ruland (2003), adopting the semi-presidential form of government will
not necessarily solve the current flaws of the presidential system and presents a
question of dealing with cohabitation if opposing parties rule in dual power.
The Philippine’s current decentralization program to its local governments has
attained better performance so far based on comparison with Pakistan and
Indonesia, Guess (2005) concluded that devolution programs that follow the
performance path of the Philippines will be more successful.
VI. Recommendation
I recommend the following:
1. Discontinue the move to adapt the semi-presidential model of France’s
government due to the unknown implications of cohabitation. It may not be
proper to assume that the Philippines can successfully handle governance
under two opposing parties as France did (or by accounts nearly failed to).
The circumstances of cohabitation continue to be probable and will depend
on cohesion by the opposing governing parties.
2. Intensify the reinforcement of the decentralization program currently in place
and defined in the Local Government Code of the Philippines due to the
strength it presents as corroborated by comparison studies. We have a
decentralization program already in place and recommended for adaption by
foreign researchers. We have come up with our own model to decentralizing
our unitary state by strengthening regional and local governments whilst
maintaining a presidential regime. It can be said that our own decentralization
program has achieved similar benefits as France’s, namely - growth of the tax
resources in the regions and localities, expansion of the number of public
sector employees working at the regional, provincial or local levels, and
transfer of resources from the central government to its employees at the
regional, provincial and local levels as supported by studies. Our own model
is similarly worthy of emulation by other countries contemplating
decentralization.

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3. Taking into account items 1 and 2, utilize the planned Constitutional
Assembly to institute augmentative reforms that address presidential term,
executive-legislative standoff, presidential concentration of power, political
instability, a weak party system, populism, and patronage.
VII. References
Bardhan, P. (2002). Decentralization of governance and development. The Journal
of Economic Perspectives, 16(4), 185-205. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/212069523?accountid=28547
Guess, G. M. (2005). Comparative decentralization lessons from pakistan,
indonesia, and the philippines. Public Administration Review, 65(2), 217-230.
Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/197172231?accountid=28547
Lane, J. (2011). Rediscovering the unitary model: State format and transaction
costs. French Politics, 9(1), 87-96. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/fp.2010.23
Poulard, J. (1990). The French Double Executive and the Experience of
Cohabitation. Political Science Quarterly, 105(2), 243-267. doi:1. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2151025 doi:1
Ruland, J. (2003). Constitutional debates in the philippines. Asian Survey, 43(3),
461-484. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/as.2003.43.3.461
Shair-Rosenfield, S., Marks, G., & Hooghe, L. (2014). A comparative measure of
decentralization for southeast asia. Journal of East Asian Studies, 14(1), 85-
107,149-150. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1502618025?accountid=28547
Teobaldelli, D. (2011). Federalism and the shadow economy. Public Choice, 146(3-
4), 269-289. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11127-009-9590-0
Varshney, A. (2012). DISCOVERING THE "STATE-NATION". Journal of
Democracy, 23(2), 162-166. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1014267530?accountid=28547