The way he tells it, he was frustrated that the Department of Budget and Management would not release the funds for the DND even when these had been approved by the President. Is that really what is happening? I was in government, too, at one time and I cannot imagine that this is the way that it now operates.

"Kawawa nga itong Ating mga officers at mga sundalo. The demands are very high on them to protect these communities. They will be spread out. They need mobility. They need fire-power...kulang na kulang yung helicopter," he said in a television interview.

They will probably become even more kawawa when even former defense secretaries who should know better are looking for others to blame for what must partly be their own failures.

What needs doing is for the defense secretary to work at getting more funds to modernize not only the training that the soldiers are getting out of the Visiting Forces Agreement but also the equipment that our soldiers are using. Our budget process is such that one has to justify every allocation at every point in the process from inclusion in the budget to actual release.

That takes a lot of time and effort on the part of the cabinet member. The present defense secretary, having served in Congress before joining the cabinet, is probably more successful at getting funds for the military than Cruz was during his time at the DND!

It is simply bad form to bellyache after having left the government service.

***

The noise that Senator Ping Lacson is making about double entries in the budget allocation process looks like a good issue for Lacson. In reality, though, this is a tempest in a tea pot that will only come to naught.

Who can believe that any official in the Office of Budget and Management will release an amount for the exact same thing for which an earlier release has already been made? According to DBM Secretary Rolando Andaya, under the DBM System, no fund is allowed to be released for an item with a double appropriation.

The only substantive issue that really matters is what tangible benefits taxpayers derive from this project. What is the cost of the actual project? What are the cost specifications? What is the estimated completion time?

The C-5 Road Extension Project will ease the worsening traffic problem in the Parañaque, Las Piñas and Muntinglupa areas. Senate President Manny Villar concerns himself with this since he lives in that area. But, it is not only that. With the full completion of the C-5 Road Extension Project, travel time to the industrial parks of Cavite and the rest of the province will be shortened. This translates into fuel savings for motorists, less traffic and better access to the area.

Under no stretch of the imagination can the C-5 Extension Project be remotely considered as a "road to nowhere." Are those who live and work in Parañaque, Las Piñas, Muntinlupa and Cavite nobodies who live nowhere?

What is actually wrong is our budget process where after months of debates on the budget, at the time when the conference committee meets ostensibly to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions, individual members of the conference committee are allowed to surreptitiously insert projects that were never taken up in the floor debates of both houses.

That is what needs to be addressed!

***

Trying to beat the Friday deadline for check deposit, I went to the BPI branch that was nearest - Forbes Park. The check was made out to "Ducky Trading or Horacio Paredes." I was delayed half an hour waiting for the check to be accepted. When the teller came back to me, I explained that there should be no problem since this is simple English. What, after all, does "or" mean except that the check may be deposited in either account - Ducky Trading or Horacio Paredes and I was depositing this in my Horacio Paredes account.

I was brought to the manager who then asked me if Ducky Trading was my single proprietorship which it is. She then asked for the certificate of registration of Ducky Trading as if I would carry that around wherever I went. I told her that she was dumb for not understanding the use of the simple conjunctive "or," picked up my check and deposited this in another BPI branch in Makati, without any problem but already past the deposit deadline.

Why do banks hire as their managers people who do not even fully understand basic English? How can people like her properly run a bank branch when English is the language of business, even in theMONDAY |SEPTEMBER 15, 2008 | PHILIPPINES? Why not hire the tutors who teach English at call centers to do the same thing for your bank officers?

***

"I'll be very blunt about what the MOA is, to me. The MOA is merely a series of aspirations of the MILF subject to the legal framework of the government. What the MILF was saying in the MOA is that it's up to the government to implement, if not, that's okay with us. They'll be bound by the legal processes. They cannot say that they do not agree to be bound by the obligations and responsibilities and agree to be bound by the benefits. It's a two-way street. By saying legal processes, they agree to the political outcomes, whatever they may be.

"More importantly, this is what I was made to understand. The negotiators were negotiating on a premise the MILF will tell their people that this is what they're going to ask. However, they made concessions, they agreed to take away the words freedom, self determination." - Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro, Jr.

***

On Wednesday, September 17, 2008, the First Leg of the Zone 6 Golf Competitions will be hosted by the Rotary Club of Pasig at the Orchard Golf and Country Club. This will be by a shotgun tee-off at 7:30 in the morning.