By Robert B. Roque Jr.
What zarzuela is this? At a Wednesday press con, Speaker Martin Romualdez was playing out a role—that of championing transparency in the bicameral budget conference. And like a cheerleader left out in the bleachers, House Minority Leader Rep. Marcelino “Nonoy” Libanan tried to sell the act, calling it a bold move and moral obligation.
Forgive my skepticism but while I agree that transparency should prevail in the bicam, I see Romualdez as someone just wooing us through misdirection just like a magician. As if he wasn’t in on the budget gambit all along!
Isn’t he the same Speaker under whose watch billions in confidential funds, insertions, and district-budget bloating slid through?
So, if there’s anyone to be publicly applauded for the call to make the bicameral conference committee meetings on the national spending bill for next year, it isn’t anyone from Congress.
I’d rather spread the post of Cielo Magno’s advice: Ask your district congressman where they stand. Ask them to support a fully open bicam. Livestreamed. For public viewing and fully documented.
Every centavo of that budget is ours, so it is our vested right to demand a must-know policy, not a need-to-know excuse for instant insertions into the spending bill.
Trapped in Iran
Now, to Iran, where a Filipino-Iranian father—whose child and wife are both Filipino—is begging to be evacuated from a warzone. Their home in Tehran was bombed. They fled to the Caspian Sea. Yet they’re getting ghosted by the Philippine Embassy.
Their only crime? His father’s not a passport-holding Filipino. I get it completely—the Philippine government’s priority is to repatriate Filipinos. First, the President is already doing a lousy job accomplishing that—so, I heard from a number of Fil-Iranian families here.
But how can we talk about a genuine humanitarian rescue, if in one family of Philippine passport holders, our government leaves behind their padre de familia on account of him not being Filipino? Let’s not forget: this is a man with deep ties to the Philippines—just not a Philippine passport.
This is not the problem of just one Fil-Iranian family, but many more.
As of this writing, there is a ceasefire. There is time and opportunity right now to save these mixed-race families—all of their members—before bombs start falling from the sky again. Hopefully, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), by order of the President himself, move faster, more effectively, or more inclusively.
* * *
SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View via X. Read current and past issues of this column at http://www.thephilbiznews.com
