In aid of demolition

In aid of demolition | Daily Tribune

There has never been a Lower House hearing as nasty, idiotic, blathering, accusatory and demolitive as the ongoing one at the House of Representatives that we are witnessing at this time.

There’s a so-called Quad Committee, which may have been conceived in aid of legislation for good governance but from the taste and look of it, some members have been using it, for free, to gain the limelight for the 2025 elections and destroy the good reputation of some officials.

It’s really sickening to see and hear the likes of Representatives Castro, Manuel, Quimbo, Abante, Fernandez et al. competing for the unsavory, irrelevant questions that emanated in the conduct of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) budget and POGO (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operation) hearings supposedly in aid of legislation, but really and in fact are a demolition job specially directed towards Vice President Sara Duterte.

For instance, the leftists brought out Notice/s of Disallowance/s (NoD) on the OVP which were not final but concluded that the VP had committed an illegal act. That’s idiotic. For all we know, Castro is a convicted child abuser.

Anyway, some of these NoDs have been raised by the OVP before the courts. This matter is irrelevant at the moment and makes no sense in the budget hearing that is supposedly in aid of legislation.

Actually, it’s a common or regular occurrence that a government office is served a Notice of Disallowance. The notice doesn’t make one a criminal or guilty of a crime that Representative Castro declared the OVP committed. Even the Supreme Court has decided that the Commission on Audit cannot impose administrative penalties for irregularities that occurred after a government expense had been incurred.

How can one Castro declare something that is beyond her mandate and which is vested in the courts. Her declaration indicated how stupid she is. Perhaps, the leftist thinks — what is she in power for — and can be accuser and judge rolled into one.

I’m not going into detail since most of the utterances and accusations are of public knowledge, watched, heard and learned from the live-stream on the mainstream media networks and various social media avenues.

We keen observers took notice of the questions on the love life of the resource persons, in the case of Cassandra Ong of the POGO thing raised by Abante and of former PCSO Col. Royina Garma on the issue of EJKs. Up to now, after asking many Katribus, we have yet to find any sensible argument to justify going into the details of the private lives of the poor resource persons. They asked how these insulting gossip questions will aid legislation. But we have elected people with shady characters who are probably violators of the data privacy law.

But considering that the idiotic legislators appear wanting to manifest honesty and fiscal prudence, may we ask that these creatures be obliged to submit before the people what, how much, when, why and how the funds allotted to each and every solon were spent.

If not all of you are aware, the Supreme Court already decided that any form of pork barrel is illegal and not allowed under the law. However, the solons keep the practice, in fact, more huge amounts were appropriated for them intended for so — called infra and socio-economic projects.

The funds are secretly inserted in the proposed projects list of the DPWH, DoH and DSWD covered by a Mafia-type arrangement with the agencies and executive departments concerned. From these funds, monies are released as appropriated and projects are done and not done but up to 65 percent of the monies goes to the pockets of the proponent solons.

How this is happening isn’t a question anymore because it is the SOP since the SC ruling on the pork barrel. For all intents, it is pork barrel.

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