April 9. 2005
Malacañang pronouncements on the VAT rate increase made through Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita are condescending and not to mention idiotic. We do not expect anyone to chew up without spitting out the argument that the VAT rate increase will go into workers’ wages.
This is nothing more than a cheap shot at soliciting an absent public support for a widely unpopular policy option. How does the government intend to raise salaries when it is poised to even cut its workforce by as much as 30%? With wage levels continuing to deteriorate and unable to catch up with increasing prices of commodities, Filipinos are not finding the government’s promises believable.
In the first place, this is the same government that has failed to address the weaknesses in tax administration that allowed for the fiscal crisis to set in. This is the very same government that would rather prioritize debt servicing and military offensives over social spending like those for health, education and housing.
It therefore comes as no surprise that the President’s approval rating have sunk so low. Such perceptions are not to be taken lightly. It displays an eroded trust in the government and a further alienation among the public from a continuously isolated government that is messing up its priorities with each day passing.
It becomes laughable when it even has to resort to running pro-VAT advertisements in government-owned media outfits until one realizes this is being done to spread even more lies about the regressive measure.
The VAT rate increase will not save this government from bankruptcy. The VAT will not create more jobs. Not without a thorough and massive drive to weed out graft and corruption, and a drastic re-alignment of policies away from neo-liberal prescriptions of deregulation and liberalization. Then again such calls have always been around, and one is left to wonder when the government would ever finally listen.
Alliance of Progressive Labor APL 