fullman*

Four session days have passed and the House of Representatives remains empty. They have opened the session and subsequently adjourned simply because there are not enough legislators to constitute a quorum.

The excuse last week was the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization, which held its 27th General Assembly in Cebu City. Other representatives, meanwhile, joined President GMA’s European junket.

This week, it’s the budget briefings that have kept our dear congressmen and women too preoccupied to attend the regular session. Please don’t misinterpret me. It’s not as if they are now suddenly busy with their parliamentary work. Actually, what happens is that while the formal budget deliberations are taking place, legislators are also busy having side meetings with representatives from line agencies to demand for congressional insertions and other requests. In fact, in most of the budget hearings, the buzz from these negotiations and horse trading is noisier than the formal debate itself.

Next year being an election year, this craving for more development projects is not surprising. Former Camarines Sur Representative and now DBM Secretary Rolando Andaya, who once said that a fifth of the pork barrel goes to the pockets of legislators, is predictably silent.

The Senate is still busy with inquiries that go nowhere because government officials continue to snub them. Bong Austero is appalled by the treatment that PCGG Chair Sabio is getting from a Senate panel investigating a sequestered asset, while Manolo Quezon believes that the Senate simply has no choice. I don’t really see anything wrong with Sabio’s arrest, and though I take issues, too, with the Senate’s excesses, Congress as an institution has broad oversight powers. It should certainly not be abused, but when the entire Executive is ignoring your invitation, then the institution must assert its independence.

And oh, Miriam is sick again. This time with anorexia.