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Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Sienes: Solons out to make life more miserable?
By Cris G. Sienes
Different Strokes
"...in a move more infamous than the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Senate, voting 13-9, ratified the amended VAT bill last May 10. The Senate muffled the voice of our people."
IN A democracy like ours, the voice of the people is supposed to be the supreme law. But not anymore.
Here's why. If the protest rallies staged by many concerned sectors were to be the gauge, our people are clearly against the approval of the amended VAT bill.
But in a move more infamous than the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Senate, voting 13-9, ratified the amended VAT bill last May 10. The Senate muffled the voice of our people.
While the Senate retained the VAT at 10 percent, it granted PGMA standby authority to raise the VAT to 12 percent. Since a 12-percent VAT is what PGMA wants, we can bet a pound to a peso that she will surely use her standby authority and raise the VAT to 12 percent.
Like the movie "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets," so also whatever PGMA wants, PGMA gets.
Aside from the standby authority to raise the VAT to 12 percent granted to PGMA, what was lamentable about the Senate ratification of the amended VAT bill was the deletion of the "no pass on" provision and the lower VAT rates on basic staples.
The "no pass on" provision and the lower VAT rates on basic staples were present in both the House and Senate versions of the amended VAT bill. Why that bicameral conference committee deleted the said provisions in the final version, and why the Senate ratified the final version minus the deleted provisions, is the bugging question in the minds of our people. It would seem that both the members of the bicameral conference committee and the Senate want to make life more miserable for our people.
The "no pass on" provision of the amended VAT bill would have protected consumers, particularly the poor and ordinary income earners, from absorbing the 10 percent VAT on electricity and petroleum products.
The provision compelled power producers and oil companies to absorb the VAT on their products instead of passing it on to the consumers.
Now, no thanks to the bicameral conference committee and the Senate, consumers will shoulder higher costs of electricity and petroleum products.
It is no longer a secret that increases in the prices of oil products also push the prices of just about everything upward to the detriment of the poor and low income earners.
Likewise, had the lower VAT rates on basic staples not been deleted from the approved amended VAT bill, consumers would have been assured of lower prices for them. Now, with higher VAT rates imposed on them, prices of basic staples will go up, and consumers, as usual, will have to shoulder them.
And lest we forget, doctors and lawyers are no longer exempted from VAT, so poor patients and litigants will bear the burden of higher doctors and lawyers' fees.
Add to all of these the fact that transport fares will soon go up again, followed by power and water rates and our people will be pushed deeper into the cesspool of poverty.
Deputy House Speaker Raul del Mar who, together with Makati's Representative Teodoro Locsin Jr., inserted the "no pass on" provision, said that it was unfair and arbitrary for the bicameral conference committee to delete the provision, since it was present in both the Senate and the House version of the amended VAT bill.
Locsin, for his part, said "obviously there was no political will on both sides (the Senate and the House) to have it (the no pass on provision) in the final version."
Representative Teodoro Casino also lamented the deletion of the "no pass on" provision and the lower VAT rates for basic staples. He said: "The bicam members removed the most important safety nets in the bill--the "no pass through" provision on power and fuel, and the lower VAT rates for basic staples." The bill, he added, "will kill the ordinary income earners (who) are trying to make do with meager salaries and skyrocketing prices of commodities, oil, power and, starting May 26, increased transport fares."
For what it's worth, here are the names of those who voted for and against the final version of the amended VAT bill. Those who voted in favor of the bill were Senators Franklin Drilon, Juan Flavier, Pia Cayetano, Manuel Villar Jr., Ralph Recto, Lito Lapid, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Richard Gordon, Mar Roxas, Rodolfo Biazon, Ramon Revilla Jr., Ramon Magsaysay Jr., and the opposition's Edgardo Angara.
Those who voted against the bill were Senators Aquilino Pimentel, Jinggoy Estrada, Loi Ejercito, Juan Ponce Enrile, Panfilo Lacson, Jamby Madrigal, Alfredo Lim, Sergio Osmeña III, and the administration's Joker
Arroyo.
Point to ponder: "The conduct of a wise politician is ever suited to the present posture of affairs. Often by foregoing a part he saves the whole, and by yielding in a small matter secures a greater." (Plutarch: Lives: Publicola and Solon)
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (May 24, 2005 issue)
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