Saturday, January 12, 2008 Ledesma: More tax on text another crazy idea By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
ADDITIONAL tax on text as proposed by Trade Secretary Peter Favila is another crazy idea out to destabilize the Arroyo government. In fact this proposal is worse than the adventurism and fantasy of General Danilo Lim and Senator Antonio Trillanes to bring the government down by resurrecting people power. What I am saying is that if President and AFP Chief Hermogenes Esperon are looking for an active destabilizer they need not look far.
Trillanes' foolish call to the people to join his cause as he walked to his five-star fort was a good TV viewing. Favila's text tax talk angers the youth not only in Metro Manila, but also from Batanes to the remotest nook in Tawi-tawi.
Joining Favila's proposal is the atrocious idea of Philippine Chamber Chairman Emeritus Donald Dee who claims that texting should be used only for important matters. Who is he to judge that a text message of a high school teen to a friend is not as important as his text message to his secretary? I suspect that Favila and Dee do not even indulge in text as this is cumbersome than just making a call. They do not even bother to think that a text message is only for P1.00 plus expand VAT while theirs is P6.00 per minute. I doubt whether these two characters have even checked that already text messages are already taxed.
Decades ago, telegram was the poor man's means to communicate when long distance used to be beyond their reach. Then came fax where one is charged only P12 per page and you can write as much on the page or transmit graphics. In between, corporate users with volume of telecom transactions opted for telex. Early generation of mobile phones (cell phones), which used to be in tote bags, were extremely expensive and only the rich and the well connected use them essentially as status symbols. When digitization technology came in the capacities of telcos systems were magnified along with their profitability and they expanded. Because of these dizzying development and competition following the dismantling of PLDT monopoly (thanks to FVR) the costs of mobile phones dropped and are well within the affordability of the yaya of my kids. The basic mode of communication is through text which St. Peter and Donald duck want to be taxed the more because they think that the yaya of my kids is not using it to boost the industry and the economy of the country. Well, these two jokers can go and fly a kite.
This questionable proposal from Favila and Donald, I'm afraid, only shows how bankcrupt government is of creative ideas of raising revenues. My 10-year-old boy has some suggestions. Why not impose additional taxes on cigarettes? I asked him why. "Para huminto ng paninigarilyo si tito dahil nakakahika yong usok ng sigarilyo niya." My girl has a better suggestion: "Magresign si Favila, dahil sayang din yong sinisuweldo sa kanya, saka ihinto na yong pork barrel ng mga kongresman at mga senador."
Instead Favila and Dee should put their acts together and think how to stop daylight smuggling of highly dutiable goods into the country. Look at how a high profile personality like Willie Villame attempted to acquire a high-end sports car and only paying a paltry amount of tax. Look at how banana exports are being taxed. The multi-nationals are taxed on the basis of the price they buy from our growers and not on the basis of the price they sell to their buyers abroad. I just cannot piece these together but I find it anomalous and exploitative to see that they pay so little to our Filipino growers when they sell the same commodity several times over to the export market than their acquisition price here.
Think big Secretary Favila. Stop pestering the poor. Maybe you can tax the talk but lay off from text. Think again because to me, more tax on text is a knee-jerk proposal from an idle mind.
