Corruption And Sona

[No name]

I haven't read all of the State of the Union Address (SONA) but I hope I can find the time to do so.What I did read was that over 93% of the governments budget was spent in the first six months of this year. The new president is whining about that. If I recall right, the same thing was true last year. Not sure how unusual that is.The second thing that struck me was that he was bringing up the high payments to the staff of the MWSS I think it is. Waster and sewer service I think. Public works employees basically.They have paid themselves three years worth of salaries. I thought wow, that's a big deal Then I found out they were getting the lavish amounts of P30,000 a month. Lavish? $650 a month? That's triple what they should have been getting and this is the executives?I can't criticize a government official in the Philippines, its illegal for a foreigner to do so.Also in the speech, the president seemed to be setting the stage for the recent spikes in electrical cost to increase even more. That the last president wouldn't allow the National Power Corp, I think that's what they call it, to raise prices despite their repeatedly asking to do so. The implication being the prior president didn't want the prices to go up and making the people mad during an election year. makes sense, it makes sense even though she could not run for re-election as president. She still would have political allies to keep happy. I don't know that she did that just that I can see a cause of it.At the same time, could it be a good time to help the public resent the people that run the power delivery? Especially at a time when prices are going up? can you think of a good political reason to do that? I wonder why the president would make such a big deal out of 600 a month. It seems like such a small thing when there is so many big things that need his attention.. My girlfriend though, she informed me that he's starting with the small things, one small thing at a time will add up. What do you think? any thoughts?

[tropicalwaste]

Firstly the salary thing is a robin hood stunt. The poor of the poor (majority voters) will see it as giving back to the people if something is done. Yet at the same time he hasn't upset the rich with their billions of pesos in private accounts.The thing regarding the electricity is not only is it to satisfy political allies for the previous administration its also over priced to start with! The infrastructure here is more like a life support machine than a reliable service. Brown outs lack of daily power are common in a lot of areas of the Philippines yet the condo's and sub-divisions keep going up as well as the talk of making the Philippines a call center hub! There has already been companies stop expansion or moved off the Philippines due to its infrastructure issues it still lacks the ability or interest to resolve.You forgot to mention the rice overstocks! this will be interesting as it may force a block on imports so the stock can be dumped on the market. So if you have been advised by others to invest in rice for imports I would hang onto your cash as there is currently enough rice until December but a lot of the stock may go bad before then which is why I think an import ban may happen.money spent before its even touched the sides of what is needed is pretty much normal here look at all the projects that never finish running out of money before they get completed yet nobody ever says "why you had more than enough money before it started?".Like anywhere else in the world its the things that aren't making the headlines that you have to watch as a lot of things are no doubt going on in the background that will become public knowledge once nobody can either do anything or have an interest in. The current way politically NoyNoy looks he appears as honest and a president of the people but its still early days and I do hope he is going to change things but time will tell.

[No name]

Firstly the salary thing is a robin hood stunt. The poor of the poor (majority voters) will see it as giving back to the people if something is done. Yet at the same time he hasn't upset the rich with their billions of pesos in private accounts.The thing regarding the electricity is not only is it to satisfy political allies for the previous administration its also over priced to start with! The infrastructure here is more like a life support machine than a reliable service. Brown outs lack of daily power are common in a lot of areas of the Philippines yet the condo's and sub-divisions keep going up as well as the talk of making the Philippines a call center hub! There has already been companies stop expansion or moved off the Philippines due to its infrastructure issues it still lacks the ability or interest to resolve.You forgot to mention the rice overstocks! this will be interesting as it may force a block on imports so the stock can be dumped on the market. So if you have been advised by others to invest in rice for imports I would hang onto your cash as there is currently enough rice until December but a lot of the stock may go bad before then which is why I think an import ban may happen.money spent before its even touched the sides of what is needed is pretty much normal here look at all the projects that never finish running out of money before they get completed yet nobody ever says "why you had more than enough money before it started?".Like anywhere else in the world its the things that aren't making the headlines that you have to watch as a lot of things are no doubt going on in the background that will become public knowledge once nobody can either do anything or have an interest in. The current way politically NoyNoy looks he appears as honest and a president of the people but its still early days and I do hope he is going to change things but time will tell.

Change? where did I hear that theme before. someone moved this to off topic so I guess the topic is wanted here.