EDITORIAL - Why investigate what is already known?

Congress is set to embark on yet another investigation. This time the target is the Department of Education in connection with its purchase of millions of pesos worth of allegedly substandard school chairs, desks and tables.

Such an investigation will not accomplish anything, in the same manner that similar investigations into other anomalies such as the more serious error-filled school textbooks have failed to correct the problem.

If congressional investigations are only worth the time, money and effort expended to undertake them, Filipinos would be seeing far fewer problems today, given the quickness and the propensity of either house of Congress to conduct such investigations.

Congressional investigations were not originally bad. Conceived for a noble purpose, they were meant to provide a venue and a means to determine facts not normally available through the usual channels, in order to further the goal of legislation.

But somewhere along the way, as politics became more pernicious and consuming, and technology bridged the gap between news sources and scenes and the home, some bright boys found that congressional investigations provided an ideal means to self-advertise.

And so it came to pass, in a country where anything can become a fad overnight, that congressional investigations are conducted at the drop of a hat, for causes and reasons that swing wildly from the serious to the frivolous.

One such investigation, recently being pushed in the Senate, is for that "august" chamber to look into an incident in which some high society matrons were swindled of their jewelry worth millions upon millions of pesos.

Why the legislature of a country would even bother with a crime involving a few rich women shows the depths to which the priorities and sense of propriety of our politicians have sunk, and betrays the seriousness with which they go about their mandated task of legislating.

Given how skewed and topsy-turvy things have become, it is no wonder then that nothing ever gets done. Going back to the problems at the DepEd, everybody knows it has grown to become one of the most corrupt in the land. And Congress still needs to investigate? Come on.