Headline: P45-B allotted for boosters in 2022. This early some people are boasting.
This P45-B comes from P240-B allocation for Covid-19 response in next year’s budget.
The over P3-T 2022 budget has businessmen shaking in fear. The taxmen are not far behind.
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And talking of budget, top men at the Department of Budget and Management may have known what was coming that they left the kitchen before they could get burned.
They resigned for personal reasons like health issues. Truly, I suppose, staying longer in the department would indeed be unhealthy.
Seers, indeed these top guys are.
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Headline: 2 House leaders buck absolute divorce bill.
Pro-life Buhay party-list, Rep. Lito Atienza and the founder of Jesus is Lord Church Worldwide, Rep. Eddie Villanueva objected to the passing of a bill allowing absolute divorce in the country.
The pro-life solon asserts, the proposed bill is a violation of the Constitution.
The leader of the Christian community meanwhile, says the divorce bill is not a solution to broken marriage.
The former accused the House Committee on Population and Family Relations of railroading the passage of the bill.
My paisano has another term for the railroading of this bill. It is shotgun marriage.
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Divorce is an issue only for those who can afford to pay lawyers and doctors.
At the “laylayan”, my paisano says, they just leave house when it is not home anymore.
Some families are just lucky. Some are not.
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One lucky family is the father and son tandem in Tacloban City politics.
Mayor Alfred Romualdez is running for reelection. It is said that his son is his running mate or the vice mayoralty candidate.
So, people are not surprised the duo are almost always seen together in public events.
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Over fifty years ago, in my school days in Tacloban, Gov. Kokoy Romualdez ran and won on the promise to make Leyte great. “Leyte will be great again,” the campaign promise said.
Those days, as kids living in the “sulod” behind Imelda’s nipa hut on Real Street, making fun of the Romualdez battle cry, we shouted back “Leyte will ‘bugrit’ again”
Realities today, the “great” that Romualdez promised, we are still desperately searching. The “bugrit” is easier to find.
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Cracks are showing in the Romualdez political family.
Talk of the town is Mayor Alfred’s vice mayor is poised to challenge his reelection bid.
Jerry Sambo Yaokasin, the more popular political leader in the city has the support of another popular councilor, Edwin Chua, rumored to be Yaokasin’s running mate.
But a former councilor, Gerry Uy, is also making the rounds, reported to be interested to run for vice mayor.
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This turn of events in the political front gives credence to story moving around that the Romualdezes are losing their hold of Leyte politics.
In the first district of Leyte, FM is said to be agreeing to support mayors of the Petilla family, the more dominant political family in the province, shifting to a coalition mode.
From our end, it is not coalition mode. It is survival mode. It is the survival of “Tingog”, Romualdez’ party-list.
Tingog is Waray for voice. In its first three years in the House, Tingog, the voice, was unheard in the mission to improve the quality of life in the first district of Leyte.
But why would they want to make better the life of the Warays?
The Warays are better poor so they are easily bought come elections.