The Draft Senate Bill for creating the Visayas Rehabilitation Commission and allocating funds thereto and for other purposes (Click the image at right to see the dirty draft of the bill)
It is recalled being told to the people in the Senate of the Philippines, that our group even if we do not mean ill of others, often tell things in the harsh version of the truth without any cosmetics nor embellishments. Sometimes our group even tells things in words that cannot even be swallowed, specially when the recipient has something hidden under the sleeves.
It is always best to qualify and mitigate vitriol however with kindness and thoughtfulness. This is one of those times. We wish to commend three different parties in this message:
1. The Congress
Speaker of the House of Representatives Feliciano Belmonte, who made it known to all and sundry that he was speaking with Members of the Congress who were reachable during the present recess period, and reaching an agreement with them that they are going to give up their PDAF money in favor of the victims of calamities in Tacloban, Samar, etc. It will appear in the latter part of this message that that will no longer happen, seeing as it is that PDAF has already been TROed by the Supreme Court.
2. The Senate
During the Bohol-Cebu Earthquake, the Senate, that is mired in the middle of the controversy of the PDAF, DAP (enormous amounts figuring in bribery for the impeachment of now deposed Chief Justice Renato C. Corona) as a whole body, passed a Senate Resolution to give Six Million Philippine Pesos (PHP6-M). The money is not even comparable to booger (kulangot) in the face of the multi-billions freely being given away by government to dressed for funeral public officials and their contractor co-conspirators with similarly well dressed up documents. The Senate was in a quandary over the recent tragedy that hit Visayas again; it appears that giving PHP6-M will be very embarrassing. They cooked up an idea that the private sector will shell out big donations that will then be deducted from the taxes that businessmen pay to the government. Spokesman E Lacierda says that they have to craft a law to that effect.
3. Malacanang
The Office of the President is the last stop in the making of a law that will grant rehabilitation funds for disaster affected areas. Mr. Aquino the 3rd has to sign the law to put it into effect.
In the past, Mr. Aquino the 3rd's late mother, Pres. Cory Aquino, agreed and signed into law the allocation of independent or autonomous budgets specifically and strictly dedicated to the rehabilitation of Baguio after the Killer Earthquake of 16 July 1990 and the rehabilitation of Central Luzon after the Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 15 June 1991. Around PHP2 Billion went to Baguio and PHP7 Billion for Central Luzon (the original integrated incomprehensible and embarrassing damage assessment was only PHP800-Million) became PHP10-Billion.
We therefore write to Salute the Senate and Malacanang, and sooner than later, before we forget, Congress for the statement to media of Senator Francis Escudero, Chair, Senate Finance Committee that from out of the budgets of the various departments, funds for the rehabilitation of Visayas will be taken out and re-allocated for the Visayas Rehabilitation Effort. The total rehabilitation fund will be Ten Billion Philippine Pesos (PHP10-Billion). Shrewd little devil, that one. And in 2014 or before, other laws may be made by the Legislative to effectively allocate added funds for the Visayas Rehabilitation Effort. (We tweeted shrewd little devil earlier about the Visayas Rehabilitation.)
Capping the triumphant announcement of our dearly beloved politicians, Malacanang made a public statement a few minutes ago that it interposes no objections to the direction of the Legislative and the way the 2014 national budget will be diminished by PHP10-Billion.
Salute to all of you, Senate and Malacanang and in advance Congress for allowing the people to win you over to the side of the helpless and suffering surviving victims of the disaster and their communities that have been ravaged by the powerful blows of the earthquake (it is recently doing several encores) and Typhoon Yolanda.
We will not relent in our campaign for the allocation of a larger fund for the recovery and reconstruction of affected areas.
But lest we forget, while we interpose our non-objection to the recent announcements of Senate and Malacanang (and in the near future, Congress) may we reiterate the headache we are giving you to modernize Phivolcs, Pagasa, Namria, the entire DOST and other related agencies that have something to do with disaster preparedness. Most of all, kindly do not forget to allocate merienda and softdrinks for the NDRRMC when they hold a series of seminars about re-engineering their disaster risk reduction strategy and Bible Reading on how not to keep people in super suspense whether their relatives are alive or dead.
Thank you very much again dear officials for small favors. We are not through with you, yet.
