Why should the government spend P500 million of taxpayers’ money for a grotesquely designed museum the main objective of which is to promote hatred, disobedience and division among the Filipinos?

Last week, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda filed a bill calling for an increase in the existing road users’ tax by 300 percent. His excuse — Congress needs more money to spend for the next year.

The 300 percent tax increase on the road users’ tax, however, does not mean that all public roads will be improved. Salceda’s tax is a fee that motorists must pay to use the nation’s badly paved roadways.

As if the Salceda tax hike is not bad news enough, the media recently reported that the Senate reduced the 2020 budget of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) by P465 million. That means the country’s hospital of last resort is expected to operate on a mere P2.77 billion budget next year.

The total cost of running the PGH and its health care programs will certainly increase next year, primarily because of the increasing number of sick Filipinos. Dengue, polio and HIV cases in the country are increasing. Undoubtedly, the huge budget deduction for next year will certainly spell miserable times for the national medical center.

Certainly, the need for a decent, realistic budget for the PGH cannot be denied. PGH is no longer just the poor Filipino’s hospital; even members of the middle class who used to afford medical treatment at private hospitals are now adding to the hospital’s overcrowded clinics, rooms and wards.

The PGH is the barometer of how much the Philippine government values the health of the people. Essentially, the PGH’s share in the national budget indicates just what are the priorities of Congress in terms of welfare legislation. A small budget mirrors the low regard the nation’s congressmen have for national health care.

Critics of President Rodrigo Duterte should not fault the President. How much each government agency gets from the national budget is a congressional decision.

In fine, there should be no way for the annual budget of the PGH to go but up. Not increasing that budget is a heartless disregard for the plight of poor Filipinos.

If there is really not enough money available in the national budget to go around, then the minimal budgetary allocation for the PGH is less unpalatable. Allotting large sums of public money to finance useless government projects and pursuits, but scrimping on funds for public health care should be an unpardonable sin.

A couple of weeks ago, this newspaper deplored the expenditure of P500 million to build a so-called martial law museum in the Diliman, Quezon City campus of the University of the Philippines.

Why should the government spend P500 million of taxpayers’ money for a grotesquely designed museum the main objective of which is to promote hatred, disobedience and division among the Filipinos?

Why spend half a billion pesos of public funds on a white elephant kind of public eyesore which vilifies martial law, a national security measure expressly allowed under the 1935, 1973 and 1987 constitutions, and which only glorifies communist cadres and supporters who almost succeeded in overthrowing the duly-constituted government in the 1970s?

Martial law aborted a communist takeover. That is why communists and their sympathizers hate the martial law administration of President Ferdinand Marcos.

The so-called “court decisions” rendered against Marcos are hollow, meaningless judgments. By the time the cases which triggered them were litigated in court, Marcos was no longer around to defend himself. For that reason, how can those one-sided “judgments by default” be the justification for a museum dedicated to discredit the late strongman? From a moral perspective, the museum is wanting.

Sure, there were abuses committed by the military establishment during martial law. To make a sweeping generalization that everything about martial law is wicked enough to crucify in a museum with a biased orientation, however, is to mislead the public and generations of Filipinos to come.

Between allotting badly needed funds for the PGH and allocating public money for a biased, divisive, misleading and useless martial law museum, Congress preferred the museum.