The enduring verity that man shall not live by bread alone is a truism only a few appreciate.
This adage was the admonition of Jesus Christ to Satan when the latter challenged the Son of God who was fasting in the wilderness to transform stone into bread.
Among those who do not comprehend this tenet is the House leadership, which penalizes dissenting solons by scrapping the infrastructure projects in their respective districts and constituencies.
After sacrificing the Constitution to the altar of presidential importuning by extending baselessly martial law at the President’s behest, legislative high priests and their acolytes took a long nap without preparing and enrolling the necessary joint resolution.
The respective secretariats of the House of Representatives and the Senate are in a quandary as to the preparation or whereabouts of the enrolled copy of the joint resolution documenting the approval on December 13, 2017 of the President’s request for a one-year extension of martial law in Mindanao.
The scrapping of infrastructure projects to zero in the districts and constituencies of dissenting solons was nonchalantly dismissed by Speaker Pantaelon Alvarez as a result of the vagaries of “life”.
This cavalier response of Speaker Alvarez is an admission that he was the mastermind of the blatant last-minute highjacking of previous allocations in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), which was approved on third reading by the House of Representatives.
Vengeance plus caprice equal zero allocations for authentic opposition Representatives and other targeted legislators in the House of Representatives.
Steadfast critical dissent and perceived “waywardness” have left the respective constituencies of two-dozen solons destitute of infrastructure projects under the 2018 General Appropriations Act.
Zero allocations are projected to punish and silence opposition legislators even as it is their constituencies who are deprived of the benefits of infrastructure development.
It was a rampage of pro-Duterte solons.
The supermajority in the House of Representatives and in the Senate acceded baselessly and with alacrity to President Rodrigo Dutrete’s request for a one-year extension of martial law in Mindanao.
The prolonged extension is a congressional Christmas gift to Duterte even as it placed in jeopardy civil liberties and the rule of law.
The making of a “momentous” decision was confined to a few hours while the extension would endure for 8,760 hours in the whole of 2018 in Mindanao.
