Senators are believed to be more sober, more circumspect and more prudent than Congressmen who practically ramned through the passage of House Bill 2417 postponing once again the barangay elections scheduled on October 29. This, knowing that barangay officials have already overstayed after the 2005 election was postponed and that SK officers have long outgrown their status as youths making ridiculous even a single day of extension of their term of office. 50 congressmen voted against the bill, which they aptly described as a mockery of democracy and the electoral process and which as one dismayed legislator put it, made lawbreakers out of supposed lawmakers.
In the usual Speaker Jose de Venecia pattern of manipulation as when he was elected without allowing anyone to nominate his opponent, house rules were violated in ensuring the quick passage of the bill by not observing the three-day period between the second and the third reading and those opposed to the bill were allowed to speak for only three minutes. It was a classic demonstration of how to cook up self-serving designs right in the supposed hallowed halls of Congress.
It appalled many to realize how most of the congressmen could be herded into voting for a bill that either defies reason or has no reason at all. They were talking about the expenses if the elections were to be held on october 29 but these had been long anticipated and the government according to Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya, Jr. is ready, repeat, ready with necessary funds and has even released part of the money. Moreover, whether elections are held this october or in May, 2009 the same expenses would be incurred.
They were saying that the money to be spent by the government in october could be used to computerize or automate the next elections. That is not just silly; that is lunatic. Money appropriated for the barangay elections should be used only for the purpose; the most vital democratic process could not be sacrificed only for another objective that is not urgently needed. We have had elections without computerization and automation and the results were valid.
There are indications, however, that Senators know the card Speaker de Venecia and his cohorts are playing. Unwittingly, the very person obsessed to be prime minister unraveled the danger of a unicameral parliamentary system where an scheming leader could more easily have evil intentions materialize.
At presstime, majority of the Senators are believed to have arrived at a consensus to repudiate Speaker de Venecia’s postponement scheme. It is the people’s hope that all Senators would formally unanimously reject the bill to bring Speaker de Venecia to his senses.
