I join the silent majority in calling on all voters to think twice before casting their votes for senators this coming May 9. This is not showbiz, nor a circus act where people gets entertained. What we need is to study the qualities of the candidates and see if they really have done any good for the country.

Our incoming 12 Senators should have the instinct to get to the heart of the issues; the diligence to intensively and intimately study the provisions of the bills he/she would be proposing or debating the Senate halls; the courage to say yes or no to others when the national interest is at stake; and most importantly, the need to be incorruptible.

Sad to say, I expect a few candidates to win because of their names, nothing more. Include in the list those who have spent a fortune to pay for TV and radio advertisements just to be elected.

How much salary do our Senators really receive each month? Based on the Salary Standardization Law signed by President Duterte in January 2019, senators received around P274,000 a month.

The Senate President gets around P355,000 a month.

Although they are not entitled to receive additional compensations like allowances, Senators receive a mid-year bonus which is equivalent to 1-month basic salary and a maintenance and other operating expenses for his/her office.

What we need are future Senators who really have excellent character and moral integrity and the good moral and service reputation that will qualify them to be enshrined to the halls of past and present senators like Jovito Salonga, Lorenzo Tañada, Claro M. Recto, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Joker Arroyo.

NEW SENATORS SHOULD ADDRESS ELECTRIC POST’ WOES

SOME may find this trivial but I believe that whoever will compose the new Senate should help address growing concerns over the electric posts that eat space and greatly pose danger to the public in widened roads across the country.

The presence of these electric posts still standing in the middle of widened roads is really dismaying and defeats the purpose of the government project. Last week alone, I had a hard time counting the number of electric posts standing in the middle of widened roads in many parts of Antipolo City, Cainta, Taytay, Pasig City and Quezon City. What happened to the DILG program to remove all road obstructions too?

The current Senate has investigated the problem and I think majority of our senators have seen with their own eyes hundreds, even thousands of electric posts that were not relocated in road-widening projects all over the country. As a result, the widened portion of the road usually have been transformed into parking space as motorists really cannot use the lane due to the presence of the posts.

Thus, if elected, former DPWH Secretary Mark Villar, the son of the country’s richest couple should lead the way in addressing the problem which the agency he previously headed and the Department of Energy and the National Electrification Administration have miserably failed to resolve.

As correctly pointed out previously by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, budget is really not the problem in this case. The lawmaker said that lack of coordination between the DPWH and the electric cooperatives should be blamed here.

“In any road widening project, there’s already an allocation for post removal. The mechanism to do that is for DPWH to download the money to the electric cooperatives and then the electric cooperatives will move the posts,” he said.

“The problem is the coordination because they apparently doesn’t know who the electric cooperatives are, how much to download… The budget is already there. It’s just the coordination that is failing right now,” he added.

For her part, Sen. Nancy Binay called for the relocation of electric posts before the execution of road-widening projects. “Dapat bago mag-road widening ilipat muna nila ‘yung poste kasi di ba isipin mo, gawa na ‘yung kalsada, iuusod mo ang poste, so may butas doon ngayon na kailangan buhusan ng semento,” she said.

WE NEED MORE PEOPLE LIKE DR. EDSEL SALVANA

I’M referring to Dr. Edsel Maurice Salvana, one of the country’s top infectious disease experts who has called on all Filipinos to think and think twice before discussing politics in the wake of the heated presidential and vice-presidential race this coming May 9.

I would like to share these brilliant post from the good doctor. “ If you find yourself bitterly arguing with a good friend you have known for years because of a difference in political views, take a step back and consider whether either of you have suddenly become evil overnight, or either of you have turned fanatic.”

“People are more than their politics, and good friends agree on more things than they disagree on. The politician you are supporting probably doesn’t even know you from Adam or Eve. There is a good chance your candidate knows the opposition personally, and they have civil conversations amongst themselves, even if they do not agree on everything. “

“Don’t be a fanatic. No one has a monopoly on truth and righteousness. All human beings have done both good and bad. Choose to see why you became friends with that person in the first place, and focus on the good times. Discuss and persuade as good buddies. You’ll have more years of friendship that way, whichever candidate wins.”