ALL roads lead to Batasan on Monday as President Bongbong Marcos delivers his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the joint session of Congress.
I am particularly curious if the President will limit his top priority bills among the list of measures that were agreed upon under the Common Legislative Agenda (CLA).
There were 18 carry-over bills from last year’s list and only two are new, namely the proposed Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act, and the amendments to the Bank Deposits Secrecy Law.
From the list, PBBM is supposed to pick up his “top priorities” and call upon Congress to act and, hopefully, pass these measures before the next SONA.
On its first year, the 19th Congress failed to pass several bills under the CLA, including the amendments to the Build-Operate-Transfer Law/Public-Private Partnership Bill, the National Government Rightsizing Program, the Unified System of Separation/Retirement and Pension of MUPs, the National Employment Action Plan, and Amendments to the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act.
Will PBBM spring surprises on Monday and mention some measures that are not in the CLA? Abangan…
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Recently, the Department of Finance (DOF) has been aggressively proposing new tax measures to fund the government’s economic recovery program.
Will President Marcos call on Congress to support new tax measures at this time when people are still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic?
If he does, then the chief executive will renege on his campaign promise that he will oppose new taxes.
Even after his election, President Marcos stated that instead of introducing new tax measures that would only hurt the poor, he wants the government to improve its tax collection efforts and focus on fighting graft and corruption.
After all, it has been reported that the Philippines is losing an estimated amount of P700 billion, or around 20 percent of the country’s total budget appropriation yearly due to corruption.
To say that fixing the system and ridding the bureaucracy of corruption is a gargantuan task is an understatement. Previous administrations have tried to fix the system but failed.
It will take genuine societal change before we attain the ideal world that we desire.
The reality is that the government needs more funds to ensure its survival while its foreign debt continues to increase each year.
From P6 trillion when President Noynoy Aquino’s term ended in 2016, the National Government’s total outstanding debt amounted to P13.86 trillion as of end-March this year.
Saan na kukuha ng pambayad para sa mga utang at iba pang gastusin ng gobyerno?
And so, despite PBBM’s categorical statement that he is not keen on having new taxes, his economic managers, led by Finance Secretary Diokno, are doing the opposite.
In a recent media interaction, Diokno said the government will prod Congress to pass laws that will impose higher taxes on sugary drinks and junk foods, motor vehicles as well as mining.
Based on the initial estimates, the three tax measures once passed into laws, would generate P81.9 billion in additional revenues for the government during their first year of implementation.
What else? There will be also non-legislated regulations, such as the 1% creditable withholding tax it intends to collect from e-commerce platform users (mostly small, and fledgling business owners).
Under the proposed policy, a 1 percent WT will be deducted from half of gross revenues of online sellers, food vendors, riders, freelancers, and other persons that use online platforms (Angkas, Foodpanda, Gcash, Shopee, Grab, Lazada, etc.) to sell goods and services, and paid to the BIR. In the end, this taxing online sellers will affect all consumers.
At this time of high inflation, there will be an increase in the prices of goods and services offered through online platforms because the seller of goods and services will burden consumers with the costs.
BIR, isantabi na muna ito, please.
Senators Chiz Escudero and Win Gatchalian have publicly declared they will not support new taxes at this time, with the former even saying he will ask the President to “press the pause button” to thwart the plan of the DOF. Will they remain true to their words? Sana naman.
