A world of their own
A world of their own
Posted 11:33pm (Mla time) Mar 01, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 2, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
PERHAPS because she used to be a senator, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has always approached legislative liaison work with a light touch. On more than one occasion, she has downplayed the administration's difficulties in mustering the necessary votes in the houses of Congress, especially in the Senate, by pointing to the bottom line: At the end of the proverbial day, she gets the bills she needs passed anyway.
Now she is not as blithe. On Monday, she used the occasion of a sparsely attended lunch she hosted in Malacañang marking the centenary of the Rotary Club of Manila to rebuke both Houses of Congress. Their offense: a continuing failure to pass the national budget.
The last time Congress passed a national budget, the President noted, was in 2003. But reenactment in 2005 is no longer an option. Another reenacted budget would only court disaster, principally because of the successive downgrades by international credit-rating agencies in the last two years. Reenactment, which automatically takes place when the proposed budget does not meet legislative deadlines, would mean operating this year's programs with two-year-old assumptions: the surest sign that the government is running as fast as it can merely to stay in place.
The President said, pointedly, that she was "fighting for this budget to be passed this March because it will send a signal to our people and to investors that we're in control of our own future."
Congress, in implied contrast, was sending the wrong signal. "Those who oppose the national budget and the VAT [the proposed 20-percent increase in the value-added tax] will set this nation back and put us on a collision course with fiscal and economic responsibility," she said, drawing a graphic picture in black and white. "They will hold this nation hostage to a future devoid of hope by putting petty politics ahead of the national good."
Hyperbole informs much of political rhetoric, and the President's second statement makes generous use of this characteristic figure of speech. Petty politics? A future devoid of hope? We detect a hint of panic creeping into the President's language. But this much at least is true: the Houses of Congress, especially the Senate, have been unmoved by urgency.
The two chambers have dutifully laid the blame for the delay at each other's doorsteps. But a revealing speech by opposition maverick Sen. Panfilo Lacson last Monday reinforces our conviction that the Senate bears more of the blame.
Speaking before the Makati Business Club, Lacson disclosed that senators had "succeeded in removing P1.3 billion in intelligence funds from the executive branch ... [only to] channel the slashed funds to their pork barrel allocations."
There is no direct correlation between this legislative sleight of hand and the delay in the budget, but just the same it tells us all we need to know.
We have joined other advocates who have called for the scrapping of the pork barrel. We believe this is one of the most efficient ways to cut down on the national budget. Defenders have argued that, at about P20 billion, the pork barrel funds do not amount to much. They are wrong, of course; every single peso counts. They are also obtuse: If legislators give up their pork barrel allocations, the message of self-sacrifice gains power, becomes compelling.
Various senators have rejected the appeal to scrap the pork barrel for various reasons, but if we were to venture a summary of their arguments, we would say what is common is precisely the lack of a sense of self-sacrifice.
The tone of budget deliberations in the Senate was set by the famously acerbic Sen. Joker Arroyo, who asked his fellow senators to pretend that agencies like Moody's Investor Service do not exist. We can sympathize with Senator Arroyo, who is visibly nettled at the prospect of following (or worse, being seen to follow) the conditions of an international agency. But to pretend that independent risk evaluators do not exist, because they encroach on the privileges of the gentlemen of the upper chamber? Senators must be living in a world of their own.
Lacson's disclosure gives us additional proof that this is so. In spite of all the talk about the urgent need to trim the budget and get the economy going, our honorable senators have been caught playing games, of the pork barrel kind.
Posted 11:33pm (Mla time) Mar 01, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 2, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
PERHAPS because she used to be a senator, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has always approached legislative liaison work with a light touch. On more than one occasion, she has downplayed the administration's difficulties in mustering the necessary votes in the houses of Congress, especially in the Senate, by pointing to the bottom line: At the end of the proverbial day, she gets the bills she needs passed anyway.
Now she is not as blithe. On Monday, she used the occasion of a sparsely attended lunch she hosted in Malacañang marking the centenary of the Rotary Club of Manila to rebuke both Houses of Congress. Their offense: a continuing failure to pass the national budget.
The last time Congress passed a national budget, the President noted, was in 2003. But reenactment in 2005 is no longer an option. Another reenacted budget would only court disaster, principally because of the successive downgrades by international credit-rating agencies in the last two years. Reenactment, which automatically takes place when the proposed budget does not meet legislative deadlines, would mean operating this year's programs with two-year-old assumptions: the surest sign that the government is running as fast as it can merely to stay in place.
The President said, pointedly, that she was "fighting for this budget to be passed this March because it will send a signal to our people and to investors that we're in control of our own future."
Congress, in implied contrast, was sending the wrong signal. "Those who oppose the national budget and the VAT [the proposed 20-percent increase in the value-added tax] will set this nation back and put us on a collision course with fiscal and economic responsibility," she said, drawing a graphic picture in black and white. "They will hold this nation hostage to a future devoid of hope by putting petty politics ahead of the national good."
Hyperbole informs much of political rhetoric, and the President's second statement makes generous use of this characteristic figure of speech. Petty politics? A future devoid of hope? We detect a hint of panic creeping into the President's language. But this much at least is true: the Houses of Congress, especially the Senate, have been unmoved by urgency.
The two chambers have dutifully laid the blame for the delay at each other's doorsteps. But a revealing speech by opposition maverick Sen. Panfilo Lacson last Monday reinforces our conviction that the Senate bears more of the blame.
Speaking before the Makati Business Club, Lacson disclosed that senators had "succeeded in removing P1.3 billion in intelligence funds from the executive branch ... [only to] channel the slashed funds to their pork barrel allocations."
There is no direct correlation between this legislative sleight of hand and the delay in the budget, but just the same it tells us all we need to know.
We have joined other advocates who have called for the scrapping of the pork barrel. We believe this is one of the most efficient ways to cut down on the national budget. Defenders have argued that, at about P20 billion, the pork barrel funds do not amount to much. They are wrong, of course; every single peso counts. They are also obtuse: If legislators give up their pork barrel allocations, the message of self-sacrifice gains power, becomes compelling.
Various senators have rejected the appeal to scrap the pork barrel for various reasons, but if we were to venture a summary of their arguments, we would say what is common is precisely the lack of a sense of self-sacrifice.
The tone of budget deliberations in the Senate was set by the famously acerbic Sen. Joker Arroyo, who asked his fellow senators to pretend that agencies like Moody's Investor Service do not exist. We can sympathize with Senator Arroyo, who is visibly nettled at the prospect of following (or worse, being seen to follow) the conditions of an international agency. But to pretend that independent risk evaluators do not exist, because they encroach on the privileges of the gentlemen of the upper chamber? Senators must be living in a world of their own.
Lacson's disclosure gives us additional proof that this is so. In spite of all the talk about the urgent need to trim the budget and get the economy going, our honorable senators have been caught playing games, of the pork barrel kind.
posted by Dante at 10:35 PM
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