Priorities

EVERYONE wants to get a piece of the action when Manny Pacquiao, RP’s pound-for-pound king goes into the ring with Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto on November 15.
Therefore, it’s not surprising to know that Philippine House Speaker Prospero Nograles and his cohorts are going on a side trip to the WBO welterweight match after their series of meetings in Washington with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her party of lawmakers.
Admittedly, Speaker Nograles is an avid fan of “The Pacman” and even considers himself as part of Team Pacquiao.
So what is wrong with this picture? It is the fact that Nograles promised that he would be back in time for the resumption of session on November 9.
The absence of the 21 solons (including Nograles) who are planning to watch the fi ght from the House session will pose a recurring problem for the remaining House leaders — the usual lack of quorum.
And it seems that Speaker Nograles and his company are not the only ones. A multitude of House members are scattered all over the world at the moment, mostly on vacation.
It just makes one think how some government leaders could cough up so much for travel and vacation expenses, given that the Philippines is still going through the slow process of rebuilding and rehabilitating the destruction brought about by the recent typhoons.
It’s like deja vu, only that it’s very real. The $20,000 Le Cirque dinner in New York will continue to haunt Filipinos in their dreams, especially those who lost family members and everything they owned from the severe storms and are surviving on donated cup noodles and biscuits.
Despite the successive calamities and the continuing hardships our devastated kababayans face, this type of audacious behavior continues to be seen among some of RP’s government leaders. Perhaps it’s time for us, as voters, to give undeserving leaders the “indefi nite vacation” that they need. Come election time, we should exercise our collective power to separate the wheat from the chaff. (AJPress)
( www.asianjournal.com )
( Published November 4, 2009 in MDWK Magazine p A6 )