BTT: DepEd, since time immemorial, has overpriced a lot of items. So (sadly) this noodles thing ain't new. Now, if this noodles fiasco happened, say, late 2007...would a presidentiable "rattle the sabre" so that "the sword of justice" would be brought down to those erring government persons? My personal view: probably not....not unless their positioning and posturing would benefit them. It's interesting that, every time "election season" is near, them big wig politicians have the light switches inside their head turning on and saying "aha! there is corruption here...there!" An lot of my relatives work for the government. A number of them work where the money is (go figure) and have worked for all the presidents since Marcos and according to them, this overpricing thing is not new. Heck, one of them even told me that he thinks that all items being bought by the government are overpriced.

OT: Know what else is interesting with us? Most Pinoys trumpet to the world that the Philippines is a corrupt country. A lot of Pinoys tell foreigners that the Philippines is corrupt i.e. one of the first things that most Pinoys do when they tell foreign visitors about the Philippines is tell stories about corruption. While most of them are true, I believe some of them are exagerated. So, when that foreigner returns home, he/she would tell the corruption story that Pinoys tell him/her with addd exageration. I've been to China and the whole world knows that the Chinese government also has corruption but I never met a Chinaman who trumpeted corruption in their government to me. Know where I saw this "mentality"? In South America and some parts of Africa.