Has nary a soul heard that a P10B Senate building will start construction next year?
Yes, and this deadline beater is stunned.
Reports I gathered say that Sherwin Gatchalian authored the Senate resolution that surprisingly did not create any noise last year in November.
The proposed new Senate building will be constructed on a two-hectare lot inside the Navy Village grounds adjacent to the Bonifacio Global City.
Taxpayers will buy the land at P1.8B while construction will be executed by the Los Angeles-based AECOM, said to be one of the world’s top engineering and construction companies.
The perspective of the proposed new Senate building shows it to be some 18 stories high with a park at the center on a sprawling 8.5 hectares of floor area.
Wow, this is grandiose!
In the resolution, Gatchalian rationalized that the present GSIS Senate venue has “claustrophobic halls and gloomy atmosphere.” He compared the same to the Batasan Complex where the Lower Chamber holds plenary sessions with a “sprawling and verdant view.”
Filipino taxpayers will again be duped by legislators who think they are entitled to enjoy the ideal and paradise-like working amenities.
They perhaps envy their counterparts who hold office at the iconic US Capitol, at the Reichstag in Germany and the Palace of the Westminster in Great Britain.
Don’t our senators realize that we are a Third World Country struggling to survive the economic whiplash of global developments that only First World nations are currently able to meet head on?
With P10B, the government can build 10 PGH-like hospitals in strategic regional centers to serve the millions of poor and indigent patients seeking efficient and free medical help.
We all know that public health care is one the major aspects of Philippine life where the government is severely lacking in its delivery of basic public services.
Or build P500,000 modest houses for low salaried government employees to repay back in low installments?
Or for government to buy Meralco to give it the authority to run and distribute electricity at production costs so that energy consumers are not at the mercy of ever-increasing electricity costs?
Should the senators reserve for themselves the privilege to enjoy utopian amenities when the millions of their constituents are wallowing in abject need of medical care and attention?
This is preposterous, don’t you think so?
There are only 24 lawmakers and they want to hold offices in plush and luxurious surroundings like they are kings and sheiks of royal descent?
I tell you, this plan to erect a P10B Senate building may become a white elephant.
This is because of the on-going plans of the Duterte administration to shift to a federal system where senators would be elected regionally. Therefore, if this plan succeeds, who will hold office in the proposed P10B Senate edifice?
More than the above, personally the proposal is absurd and ridiculous.
It should be shot down this early because it is a BIG waste of taxpayers’ money that is surely to go down the drain.
First, there is no need to erect such a huge building for ONLY 24 legislators (or clowns, it’s up to the reader to infer between the lines) because they do not deserve it.
Second, it is too expensive, and much too extravagant spending for the government to afford it.
I urge readers to magnify and articulate this issue in social media portals. (Email your feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.) Mt.6:27 & 34: “Who of you by worrying will add a single hour to his life?…Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” GOD BLESS THE PHILIPPINES.
