Even New Year resolutions are recycled

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

In these times when the environment needs to be sustained, recycling anything from paper, metal and plastics into reusable forms is what environmentalists want us to do. Not only that, even politicians including the laws they make are consciously or unconsciously recycled.

By the end of December, one realizes that resolutions for the year that passed were not satisfactorily completed. But there isnothing that can stop anybody from re-doing something undone, so that even New Year resolutions are recycled.

In every election season, politicians talk about reforming election laws to make it responsive to the present time and to make it more protected from election fraud. But in all the elections we have been through, there were always complaints of cheating.

It only shows that elections here are always manipulated. Thus, it is terribly necessary for lawmakers to amend election rules in such a way that manipulation by any means is minimized or cleared.

Losing senatorial bet Atty. Glenn Chong during his campaign talked about having a hybrid elections where voting will still be by shading an election ballot but counting will be done manually.

In addition to his proposal, there is a need to reduce the number of voters to 200 per precinct from 800 voters; voting will start at 6am and finish by 10am, then manual counting starts and continues during the day, followed by electronic transmission.

The Commission on Elections, the lead agency in implementing elections will also be tasked to set up monitoring and call centers to receive complaints and observations during the election period.

Election watchdogs and political bets in the past observed that in many instances, transmission of votes were delayed to see the results of voting for a certain candidate, especially politicians vying for national positions.

By the way, in a press conference in the city prior to the May elections last year, Glenn Chong said, some eight senatorial bets in the 2016 elections paid Smartmatic to win.

That could be the very reason why lawmakers on the national level have not moved a finger against Smartmatic because they have been benefiting from its presence since the first day that it was commissioned.

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Recovering road space by clearing its sides of occupants, whether legal or illegal, as ordered by President Duterte cannot be sustained as this does not have the funds for its implementation.

 It was a surprise on the part of LGUs who did not allot funds for Duterte’s instruction but they had to execute the order any way because their compliance was being monitored by the DILG.

Neither were there funds downloaded from Malacanang or the DPWH national office to the LGU for the implementation of Duterte’s road clearing operations.

As a result, volunteers who man demolition teams may not be sustained unless the concerned LGU provides the budget. But this cannot be since there is no basis for computing such an activity.

Thus, after the initial demolition of structures and clearing of roadways, the teams that participated on a volunteer basis may not be called back for a second round except when they receive salaries and other benefits.

Certainly, this is a recycled dream year in-year out for every LGU to have wider road spaces so that traffic can flow, but this cannot be sustained due to budget constraints.

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No matter how President Duterte apologizes for the government’s inadequacies in the agriculture sector, the damage to farmers has already been done when he signed the rice tariffication law.

And no matter how ready he is to meet with farmers to address low prices of palay, deal with the unfinished irrigation projects and faulty machinery in the government’s mechanization program, our farm workers are already hurting.

Yet, he is not inclined to repeal the rice tariffication law which he signed into law last February because he believes repealing the law could result in a food crisis. Having no food for the people is what any president does not want to happen.

The law allows private firms to import rice once the necessary permit are secured from the Bureau of Plant Industry. This is opposed by some farmers’ groups, saying the influx of cheap imported rice has forced them to sell their produce to traders at lower prices.

The law promises a Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) worth P10 billion to protect the livelihood of local farmers, plus free seeds and farm implements to reduce their production cost and increase their yield.

These are good for the ears but all these were unfulfilled promises in past administrations. At least I learned something this New Year – that when one becomes president of a country, he does not realize that he is recycling unfulfilled promises of his predecessors.

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Last week, the video of a cop holding on to the hood of a taxi SUV became viral on social media. “Extortionist” or “kotong” cops have always been around. Then we had news about “Ninja” cops.

Now we have a “Spiderman” cop in Baguio who is ready to die just to apprehend an erring taxi driver. But surely, what we do not want to have is a dead hero. That is no good in any way one sees it.

A prosperous 2020 to all and here’s wishing that our New Year resolutions will not be recycled next year.