NBN or national broadband deal fiasco

The latest controversial issue being faced by some officials in the present administration of the Philippine government now concerns the much-maligned NBN or National Broadband Network. Just what is all about this furor that is roiling the corridors of power in the gilded halls of Malacanang palace and the Philippine congress? Every angle a patriotic Filipino looks at it, it utterly reekes of the pungent odor of the bane of politics-graft and corruption. But then, considering the current state of Philippine government, this kind of issue is as old as time itself. We have to face that hard, brutal fact, official corruption is prevalent and deeply-rooted in Filipino physique that combating it can be compared to Don Quixote’s antics of tilting at the windmills. This is a way of saying that this problem exists in practically all levels of government and even in the private business sector.

It is understandable that a considerable number of individuals “trusted” by their respected constituents tend to dip their hands into the public treasury or engage in anomalous transactions (read overpriced deals or contracts) which more often than not result in the massacre of the country’s coffers. This NBN project is just one of the excesses committed by some enterprising high-level officials in the current ruling party. As a general overview, the proposed National Broadband Network is a (self-profitable) state project which aims to digitally connect most if not all of the local and national government offices and agencies into one supposedly cohesive and “efficient” entity to “speed” up all public transactions with the ruling offices. As usual, the seething and simmering? Filipino masses heard about this “noble” undertaking the hard way, by being informed by way of the press regarding an expose’ of a certain official signing an atrociously overpriced contract after partying with some business managers of a foreign company whose only interest is to raid the treasury of the Filipino nation.

At this point, we can’t elaborate much about this matter since a senate investigation is currently in the works. Besides, another equally smelly issue had jumped out of the bag. This one is the Cyber education project of the Department of mis-Education which again aims at “improving” the lives of Filipinos through “high technology education. But everyone knows that the best way to improved education is by increasing the pay of those hundreds of thousands of impoverished teachers who are struggling with ever-increasing prices of basic commodities needed for daily survival.