POLITICAL and government dysfunction may sound harsh to describe what causes our troubles but looking at how they occur day in and day out makes it less growling.
Just the other day, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo denounced opposition leaders for "their unquenchable thirst" for power, pointing to their non-stop opposition to everything that she does for national progress and welfare.
Much earlier, she vowed to smash opposition attempts to grab power and slammed the Senate leadership for perverting legislative investigations for covert political ends.
She bewailed what she called politics of insults that characterized legislative inquiries "in aid of destabilization."
The President said the Senate inquiry was a "kangaroo court, where speculations, hearsay and half-truths were taken as facts."
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But opposition members in Congress argue that the administration’s offensive against congressional investigation is merely a ruse to prevent public exposure of anomalies in the Arroyo government.
They cite the current controversy over the issuance of Executive Order No. 464 which prohibits the appearance of key officials of government, including high military officers, before congressional probes without the President’s permission.
The Executive Order has been challenged in the Supreme Court on question of constitutionality.
In a statement in yesterday front pages, Senate President Franklin Drilon rebuked Malacañang’s attacks on the Senate for conducting congressional hearings, saying they were initiated by President Arroyo’s partisans themselves.
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Drilon was referring to the Venable lobby, the alleged fertilizer anomaly in the Agriculture Department, and the NorthRail project, the 32.2 km. commuter rail system between Caloocan City and Malolos, Bulacan.
Like Executive Order No. 464, the NorthRail project has also been elevated to the High Court on constitutional issues.
The Senate President has also accused Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye of intellectual dishonesty "as chief apologist of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo" on the Garci tape ruckus.
On the rumor about the proclamation of martial law, it has been cleared that it was initiated by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez; what remains unclear is whether the release of its news to the public was also on the justice secretary’s own initiative – and for what purpose.
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Sen. Manuel A. Roxas II, probably disturbed by the increasingly unmanageable political discord, has called for sobriety even as he bewailed hearsay and name-calling becoming a common practice in the country’s political affairs.
Because of political infighting, the Philippines is now "off the radar screen" of foreign investors.
Well said.
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But all these are only some of the existing conditions that have been causing widespread uneasiness among the people brought about by pettiness and self-seeking political motivations: the same malevolent afflictions that both cause and breed government dysfunction.
