You call this good governance?

According to the government, we are in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Oil prices are rising, and these oil prices are beyond the control of the government, so we should all do our share in belt-tightening measures.

According to the government, we have very little money to spend on crucial education and social welfare programs. But the popularity rating of GMA is at an all-time low, and she is constantly on the verge of being unseated.

So what does the government do? It will risk the ire of troubled MRT commuters by reducing the number of MRT tickets in circulation. It will cut up existing and fully functional MRT tickets, implement a manual system to replace the fully functional automatic ticketing sytem, and spend 10 million pesos to create new MRT ticket cards. Why, you may ask? Why did the ticket shortage occur? Bigla bang dumami ang populasyon ng Pilipinas? Hindi. They decided to phase out fully functional MRT cards that had Erap's picture. In the midst of all the budget deficit talks. Perhaps...not seeing Erap's face will make everyone love GMA more? Haha. Talk about using government resources to hold on to power...this is one hell of a vain and power-hungry president.

Read the full article from INQ7.net here.

A critical shortage of tickets has prompted MRT 3 management to cut into two most of the old tickets and reuse these as manual passes for train rides, MRT 3 General Manager Roberto Lastimoso said.

Last month, the MRT 3 started using tickets bearing the face of ousted President Estrada but pulled out the electronic cards after the agency reportedly got into trouble with Malacañang.

The pullout of 400,000 Estrada electronic cards in mid-July immediately led to a shortage of tickets. Lastimoso said the agency needed 800,000 tickets a day so it won't have to retrieve from the machines.

But lately, only 245,000 tickets are usable. "So we retrieve our tickets four times a day. Even that is not enough so we resorted to cutting the old ones."

MRT 3, which carries about 420,000 passengers each day, is hard-pressed for funds, according to Lastimoso, which was why it has a hard time financing even the production of the electronic cards.

The agency is seeking a P20-million budget for a one-year supply of tickets but often, the budget gets channeled to items like salaries and other operational expenses.

"We will soon get the delivery of the first batch of the 800,000 tickets we ordered. Maybe, we can get half of that by the second week of September," he said.

Winning bidder Digicom will print 800,000 cards for P10 million.

Yes, this is the solution to all the political instability. This woman sure has her priorities straight.