Villar from Behind

A couple of weeks ago, I sighed to myself after I heard that the 2003 National Budget might be reenacted again. That would be a disaster of course. But then I figured that we have nothing more to expect given the quality of our legislators.

Thus, imagine my surprise when the Senate approved the Congressional Budget in toto. Since I was not fully educated in the manner of political horse trading, I wasn't aware that the bicameral sessions were the ones that mattered. That's where things got done.

By approving the Congressional proposal, the Senate effectively negated the need for a bicameral committee. By doing so, the Senate managed to pull a fast one on congressmen who were keen on making certain additions during the bicam.

The engineer I heard, was Manny Villar. Apparently, Villar has become quite adept at pulling fast ones. Remember the prayer during Erap's impeachment?

Immature

Have you noticed how immature our public officials are?

Using my same example, imagine a congressman calling for the abolition of the Senate. Why? Kasi...naisahan sila. It just seems to me that public officials are all reactive and vindictive. For instance, one official labels someone else as an illegal logger. The other party then retaliates and calls the former a corrupt official.

Now let us study that sequence for a moment. If the retaliating official already knew from the start that the other one was corrupt, why didn't he do anything to stop the other?

What's disturbing is that this is a very common scenario. Everyone seems to know about the improprieties of everyone else. And yet, nothing is being done about it.