By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Fresh out of the election microwave last week, we are bringing a revised roster of 53 party-list representatives into Congress. While we most likely know our district congressmen, the thing with party-lists is that most of us don’t really know what they stand for.
Of the 63 seats reserved for party-lists, 47 will go to groups that bagged just enough votes for a single seat each. Twenty-eight of them are new — many with names so vague they might as well have been plucked from a random raffle drum: Kamalayan, Swerte, Kapuso PM, KM Ngayon Na, 4K.
Sure, they may have resonated with a critical mass of voters because of what their campaign slogans and jingles said. But behind each of their posters and ads is or are a steady or “mastermind” funder.
More than the public agenda they claim to bear in their souls, perhaps it’s equally or even more important that we compel them to disclose who’s bankrolling these groups. Now that they’ve won, they are now answerable to the entire electorate and, thus, should be open to public scrutiny.
The public has the right to know if these so-called marginalized champions are really grassroots movements — or just polished fronts with silent agendas and dynastic motivations.
P20 rice rollout
Rice at P20 per kilo was the loudest campaign promise in 2022. Now that the elections are done, it’s back — but wrapped in qualifiers, suspicions, and damage control.
The Marcos administration is pushing a pilot run of this “subsidized rice,” promising quality and nutrition. But the public isn’t exactly buying it — not with rumors swirling online and even VP Sara Duterte casting doubt, warning it might be unfit even for pigs.
Many who went to the polls last week already suspect this cheap rice rollout to be just another well-timed political stunt dressed up as policy by the President. Marcos’s P20-per-kilo rice — long promised, much delayed — curiously became an announced reality in the campaign period of the midterm elections. As a campaign narrative, it sounded to some as some sort of vote-buying. It wasn’t distributed during the campaign, of course, at risk of being called out as a blatant poll offense.
Well, the elections are done, the ballots have spoken, and now, here is the reward. Now, voters who “delivered” are being spoon-fed like a prize: cheap rice for good behavior.
If this thesis is incorrect, then NFA’s rice distribution should not concentrate on bailiwicks of administration allies. Let’s see if the rice would be equally distributed.
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