The Fourth Perspective

Calm down. War has not reached Manila yet, at least not the one that initially crosses your mind. The battle zone that we will talk about is the battle for space in the roads of Metro-Manila among hundreds of thousands of vehicles, millions upon millions of humanity, thousands of hawkers, legalized structures by government default and hell knows what else. Jones Bridge - NOW Jones Bridge Manila- 1930's The roads of Metro-Manila, like a volcano had passed various stages of evolution in terms of utilization. From dormancy in the early 1900’s, roads came to active use in the mid’s to super active in the late’s and steadily increased in intensity at the advent of the new millennium. Now it reached the level of saturation and like a volcano is about to explode, not in the real sense of the word, but rather, as a cause towards the effect that it has become one of the major STRESSOR that threatens the physical well being of the people that uses those roads... or whatever i...

One of the United States abominable legacies to the Philippine political system is the pork barrel system. It is a system that was conceived inside the budget system but dwells along its border in the sense that members of the legislative bodies were given a free hand to identify/ select projects and endorsed disbursement for a specific item of expenditures for their respective districts subject to a relatively lenient parameters. Well, that is the cover story, the substance and discreet part is that it was being utilized as leverage thereby creating a sinister system of check and balance through mutual coercion. The executive branch has in its power the constructive release (or not to release) of the funds under the pork barrel system for the lawmakers disposition. But it will depend on the degree of cooperation the legislature is giving to the incumbent administration's programs and priorities. Similarly, members of the legislature may not act on a particular bill desperately...