ODDS AND ENDS 9/14

President’s office budget OK’d in 5 minutes

MANILA, Philippines — The proposed budget of the Office of the President for 2010 swiftly breezed through the House of Representatives, with the committee on appropriations approving it in less than five minutes on Monday.

At the start of the hearing at 9:30 a.m., Tawi-Tawi Representative Nur Jaafar moved to dispense with the presentation of the budget and the hearing, except for the budget of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group. The move was approved by the committee.

Sorsogon Representative Salvador Escudero followed this with a motion to approve the budget, which was agreed by the committee...

Representative Teodoro Casino of Bayan Muna party list who arrived about 20 minutes after the approval of the budget was surprised at to learn about the development. He said he intended to question the OP on the President’s trips abroad.

[Moral of the story: The early bird catches the worms.]
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NPC has yet to pick presidential bet - Legarda

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Loren Legarda today (Sept. 13) said the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) has yet to decide who to select between her and Sen. Francis Escudero as NPC's standard bearer in the 2010 polls.

[Get that. The party that declared Noynoy was "not at all a threat to its candidates", has yet to decide its candidates.]
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Speaker wants vote on RH bill fast tracked

With only a month left for the third regular session, Speaker Prospero Nograles is asking lawmakers to prioritize the debates over the controversial reproductive health bill so a vote could finally be reached...

Lagman is still hopeful that the bill will be passed this September, claiming that the bill already have “superiority in numbers and superiority in arguments.”

[“He does not care for flowers. Calls them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.” - Mark Twain]
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