Old habits don't die!

It seems Congress is at it again: promising one thing and doing another. As early as November, the respective Chair of the Appropriations and Finance Committees of the House and Senate were exuding with confidence that the Php 1.126-T 2007 national budget will be passed before the christmas recess.

What the House and Senate have done so far was to pass the budget measure with their separate versions and toss it to the bicameral conference committee to reconcile the differences. But today, December 22nd is the last day of the session before the legislators adjourn for a month long christmas break and the budget has not gone past the bicameral conference committee. The latest deliberation of committee members turned out to be deadlock on certain expenditure items like the DepEd's Php4-B Food for School Program which the Senate wants realign to hiring of more teachers.

So the specter of operating on a re-enacted budget comes January 2007 is again looming, and while both Chairmen, Senator Drilon for the Senate and Cong. Salceda for the House, remain hopeful that the budget will be ratified when Congress resumes session in January 2007 - the scepticism that this year's experience of the government operating on a re-enacted for the whole year will again be repeated.