It would not matter to me if the Senate didn’t pass a single law in a single year, if the laws were uncalled for, or if it filed ten thousand bills on ten thousand trivial subjects as the House by nature, does.

Your characterization of those seeking to eliminate both presidency and senate would be fine, if only it were related to what those actually plotting to do will actually establish: an executive with far greater power, far less limitations, and no basis for its legitimacy beyond whatever is needed to elect one piddling local representative possessing the funds and guile to become prime minister -in a parliamentary system that owes more to Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany than any genuinely democratic parliamentary system you can imagine. Read the proposals from the House. That is what will happen, because there will be no debate. It is the system you consider failed and flawed, the much more reprehensible system being proposed by the President and her lackeys, or a period of confusion and violence when the failed system you dislike is overthrown as a last measure to prevent the institutionalization of the Lakas-CMD blueprint for a one-party state.

The elite you despise will not go away, at least not if the ruling party has its way, and it is all set to have its way preciselyt because it is playing the local versus the national, in order to eliminate the national characteristics of our politics and restore a kind of hacienda-centric rule in its place.

In the end, I do not believe this is a time for impartiality. The President and her people have pushed things to the point that one must decide for or against her, and act accordingly. In my book, the neutral are really partisans of the President, will be responsible for what she and her people undertake, but will not even deign to disclose that.

The obnoxiousness of this government can be measured by the fact that it is making the Communists and the Estrada loyalists seem like not so terrible people, in comparison to the government. In many ways, it is just like the time of Marcos, who kept pushing things forward, and forward, until he was a dictator and people had to recover their sense of what mattered and finally kick him out. The same arguments to defend Marcos are being made to defend Arroyo now.

There is no justification at all for EO 464. Absolutely none. Not once has this President submitted a budget when she ought to, during the State of the Nation address. And in the end, with all their flaws, and there are many, if all that stands in the way between this President and her people instituting their brand of Charter change which is no change at all, then the Senate must be embraced as the last bulwark of democracy. Because it is. Just as it was against Marcos. People clapped then, when Marcos closed Senate and House down. I’m sure people would do so again. But it got them where it got them -where we are.

Going now to EO 464

The fertilizer inquiry was a noble move by sen jun Magsaysay…..as to the defense committee which is closer to my veins(literally)…I wish the good senator and the rest of his advisers (dad icluded)the best of luck!All I can give is moral support!

They say the writers write best when they’re frustrated.

Happy V. Day, Manolo

Yours,

Gerry Bhoy
Webmastah of PBP (the soon to be closed blog, thank you)

You are defending the status quo of a failed political system, especially the most unproductive Senate in the Philippines (and the world’s?) history. Really? Pretty arch-conservative of you, no?

Those who think the country can benefit by eliminating the Senate also want to eliminate the Presidency. They are not defenders of the presidential office; they also think that it is much too personality and big money oriented. Both the goose and the gander should be cooked, eaten and buried in the sands of time.

“Checks and balances” between rotating members of a centralized elite which has produced diminishing returns for the nation’s population…is a good thing? Decentralizing power, greatly reducing the costs of running for office, and making politicians intrinsically accountable to both their party (and its platform) and their local electorate…is a bad thing?

The arguments you have repeatedly used almost always revolve around the notion that the President surely cheated her way into office. Any impartial observer would point out that there is no solid evidence which supports your contention (which you have admitted). I suggest that you strip away your contention from the rest of your arguments and see what these arguments look like on their own merits.

It seems that your hatred for this President has disabled your ability to rationally search for a systematic solution to the ills which have existed since long before GMA ever hit the political scene. Gloria didn’t invent any of this mess…and she is arguably doing a solid job in lifting the country out of it by changing the economic and political dynamics which are at the root of the problem.

Meanwhile, the Senators certainly need to find something to aid them in legislation. How about some hard work for the common good — maybe that would help them actually legislate? At a cost of P12 billion per month (or is it more now?), how much more “aid” do they need to pass more than the 5 laws they passed last year?

Look — if you were working from dawn to dusk to balance your own budget and your free-spending wife just nagged at you incessantly…would you give her the EO464, too?

His comment in yuga’s blog however, is an admission
of his “crime”.

I haven’t checked if he is still splogging Sassy’s
recipe book.

His justification of his adhominems is sense of humor.
Twisted sense of humor!!!

We did not link him because that is actually his objective.
To have blog wars that will make his “network popular.

Now, as Sassy has said, he impresses that he is the victim.
Wawa naman.