Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Budget Squabbles

The national budget reminds me of making sausage - the end product may taste good, but the process is not a pretty sight. Drafting the budget is messy and unwieldy, because there are so much details involved, and there are many nooks and crannies that can hide innocuous but highly irregular proposals. I doubt if my or your district representative actually goes through the proposed budget with a fine-toothed comb. And it is doubly hard for an ordinary citizen to know what's going on in the congress deliberations for the budget. But it is important for everyone to be concerned with this issue. After all, it is OUR money that is at stake.

So if there is one thing good that came out in the spat between Senate President Manny Villar and Senator Ping Lacson, it would be the fact that the spotlight is now turned on our national budget.

A month ago, terms like double entries and illegal insertions would have registered only to those with green minds. Thanks to Lacson's exposé, we are now aware that these terms signal irregularities in the national budget.

Hopefully, all the noise generated by the Senate squabble will actually lead to a meaningful legislation. Otherwise, it will just be, well, noise. And heaven knows we have enough of that already.

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