Cheap and worthless

JUST the other day, the majority of the esteemed statesmen in the House of Representatives voted for a meager P1,000 2018 annual budget of the Commission of Human Rights (CHR).

Why is this issue so controversial? Why is it a big deal that CHR will only receive that much? Well, for government agencies, their only source of funding is from the budget set by Congress, that is, the legislative branch, both upper and lower chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

These agencies are not like business firms where sources of revenues sky’s the limit, depending on the entrepreneur’s creativity and innovativeness. They are constrained to work within the budget set for them.

Funds of these government agencies come from the taxes. There are two general types of taxes: direct tax, which is tax imposed on incomes, both from households and business firms; and, indirect tax, which tax imposed on the sale of goods and services.

Ideally, assuming all things are held constant, where there is no corruption, embezzlement and greed, ALL taxes collected should be distributed back to the citizens through various means, and one of them is the provision of public services and goods.

Going back to the P1,000 annual budget set for the Commission on Human Rights, some critics say that this will essential dissolve the constitutional commission. Not even I could live with P1000 weekly budget. How much more for one year? How much more for an agency with offices across the country? How much more for an office that is very essential?

Basically, the congress reduced the commission to 5 kilograms of pork, one cavan of rice, a roundtrip fare of a Baguio-Manila trip, 7-8 two piece