CAPILLAS
It’s quite distressing to note that even with the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) approving the additional budget for the road right-of-way component of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project those who opposed to it are still actively lobbying to have President Rodrigo Duterte cancel it outright.
Still, the government bureaucracy that does the grunt work — i.e., the BRT project management office, the Department of Transportation (DOTr), Neda and so on — in implementing the project continues to chug along as the fireworks between proponents and opponents rage on.
The riding public, namely Metro Cebu commuters who don’t own cars and are left to choose between riding a taxi and jeepney, or if they can afford it, Grab and Uber riders, can only shake their heads in resignation and bemusement over this ongoing feud between their elected and appointed officials.
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I read a Facebook post of former Capitol consultant Rory Jon Sepulveda who said that the P1,000 budget given by the Lower House to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) was a “political protest statement made by parochial lawmakers through the exercise of their constitutional powers.”
Granted that it is, it’s one ugly political statement, and only the most naive would believe that the legislators actually conducted a thorough dialogue with their constituents when they voted to reduce the CHR’s budget by a mere P1,000 or US $20 as a Time Magazine article put it.
That same Time Magazine article prefaced their story on the Congress vote with the lead that in the Philippines, the price of human rights is pegged at US $20 — the CHR budget given by legislators who didn’t expect a public outcry on their “political protest statement.”
While the Senate would likely overturn the proposed budget and give the CHR a bigger budget to work with, it’s President Duterte who will sign the budget.
And as reiterated by Duterte ally and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, a bigger CHR budget can only be possible if incumbent CHR Chairman Chito Gascon resigns and is replaced by someone a lot more pliable and subservient to the President’s war on drugs.
The CHR chief, along with the Ombudsman, have fixed terms under the Constitution and can only be replaced through impeachment. Rather than resort to shakedown tactics, Congress should initiate impeachment proceedings against Gascon.
But then the administration supermajority in Congress couldn’t afford to hit two birds with one stone — i.e., impeach both Gascon and Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno — since aside from the hard work, they don’t want to appear like they were out to silence opposition to the President.
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Speculations that former mayor Michael Rama is being considered as a replacement for former councilor Hanz Abella, who was appointed commissioner of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), surfaced yesterday, and while that possibility may be remote, crazier things have happened.
Rama is still under the President’s drug watch list, and his nomination to the vacant council post may provide him with that precious opportunity to seek an audience with Mr. Duterte and explain his side.
In the off chance that he gets chosen, that would mean big trouble for the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) bloc who still have a lot of projects on the pipeline like their ongoing plans to rehabilitate the closed Inayawan landfill.
But would the President accept Rama as a replacement? That’s something the former mayor’s backers will have to consider. At any rate, “Citizen Rama” can find a lot of things to do that need not be high profile and aimed at reminding all and sundry that he is still a political force to reckon with.