MANILA, Philippines--You know it is the changing of the political season when you hear thunderous rumblings in the Senate.

But what a time for the Senate to face a crisis: Business is reeling from the worldwide recession and the number of jobless is going to another planet.

At the center of the Senate storm is Sen. Manuel Villar, who has declared he is running for president of the republic in 2010.

The Senate ethics committee is investigating the charge made by Sen. Panfilo Lacson and Sen. Jamby Madrigal regarding Villar?s role in the alleged ?double? funding for the C-5 road project in Parañaque.

Of course, the DPWH refuted such a claim?with documents and all. Still, the Senate politics, este, ethics committee pala, just has to put Villar on trial.

With a lot of media attention, you can bet!

And that is the whole trouble. For example, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. thinks that, if the body is just honest about the whole thing, the Senate ethics committee has already prejudged Villar.

How did it happen? Pimentel points out that the committee issued an order to Villar to reply to the charges, even before the committee could agree whether the charges against him were valid in form and substance.

Among those who signed the order were Lacson, Sen. Miguel Zubiri, Sen. Gregorio Honasan and Sen. Richard Gordon.

Thus, Pimentel intends to call for a revamp of the committee, during the Senate caucus called by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, which was supposed to take place yesterday.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano calls the committee?s move as an attempted political rubout of Villar, who was ousted as Senate president late last year.

But it seems Villar?s allies in the Senate are fighting back.

And how the whole affair ends, business institutions are eagerly awaiting. Well, there?s still so much work to be done in the Senate yet.

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On April 7, which was Tuesday, or right before the long Holy Week vacation, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita wrote a letter.

It was an answer to the letter of a retired police officer named Servando Hizon, who is the acting director of the National Printing Office, or NPO.

Hizon wrote the letter to Ermita on March 30. It took Ermita?or somebody in his office?only eight days to respond to some legal matter. Such haste, don?t you think?

The Ermita letter, in effect, reversed the legal opinion written by Manuel Gaite, deputy executive secretary of legal affairs.

Now, private printing firms are up in arms against the NPO, which requires them to pass through the NPO for any job order from all government agencies. The NPO, of course, gets a 15-percent cut officially.

Unofficially, well, it is anybody?s guess. I hear it is about 30 percent.

In Gaite?s legal opinion, he said an executive order (EO 378) removed the authority of the NPO to contract out the printing jobs of other government outfits.

In fact, part of the EO 378?s title reads: ?? removing the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Printing Office over the printing services requirements of government agencies and instrumentalities.?

But then the Ermita letter reversed all what the deputy executive secretary for legal affairs said in the legal opinion, as if saying, well, NPO, go ahead, continue to charge a lot of money on printing job orders of other government outfits.

Why is the NPO subcontracting? Well, it does not have the capacity to provide all the printing needs of the government.

To me, it seems that we have an office here that insists on doing something that it cannot do, right? Private companies are now doing most of the printing jobs of the government. The NPO insists they get the NPO?s permission. At a cost, of course!

What I am saying is that, the letter will not do anything to quell unkind rumors about the NPO.

For instance, a certain JA, who is said to be close to somebody in the Palace, is supposedly active in business with the NPO.

***

Rumors are going around that the Department of Justice is going to reverse itself on the Stradec case.

That is the company called Strategic Alliance Development Corp., which operated the Star tollway, which is connected to the South Luzon Expressway.

The stockholders of Stradec have been throwing court cases against each other. These are the group of Cesar Quiambao versus the group of Aderito Yujuico.

Quiambao filed a complaint with the NBI against the Yujuico group, alleging that the latter had committed syndicated estafa when it sold Stradec?s holdings in the Star tollway.

Last year, the DOJ found ?sufficient evidence? to indict the Yujuico group.

But a couple of months ago, the DOJ issued an eight-page resolution, junking the same charges of syndicated estafa.

The Quiambao group is said to be finding a way to get another reversal of the DOJ?s decision to reverse itself. And so it goes on and on.

A ready-made copy of the new decision is said to be already at the doorstep of the office of justice secretary, awaiting signature.