Philippines: Burdening the Burdened

Saint Thomas Aquinas once said that an unjust law is no law at all. A motto that is strongly associated with natural law that every man is bound to an obligation of following his conscience based on justice. You may have heard that this year, 2018, the tax reform law (RA 10963) is put on effect. A new law intended to uplift the Filipino people or should we say be burdened. Moreover, new government polices took effect recently. Philippine government is established for the ideals and aspirations of the Filipino, may they be rich or poor. But the question arises. Is the government more compassionate to the poor or is becoming anti-poor?

What you heard is right. Yes, a new tax law is now in effect; a law that increases excise taxes to certain commodities like gasoline, sugar products, sin products and automobiles; gasoline for transportation and distribution and sugar products for beverages. In addition, the law decreases the donor’s and estate taxes down to a flat rate of 6%. At first glance, it is as if the poor wins. But, if a person will dig deeper to the contents and effects of the new law, it is the rich that had won. The Philippine Constitution Art. 6 Sec. 28 assures the Filipino people that the system of taxation will be progressive. Consumer taxes aren’t progressive. It neither looks into the taxpayers’ ability to pay or social status. It is a regressive system masked to look like progressive at all. 25% of Filipino people live in poverty according to PSA Poverty Incidence report¹. And this 25% will suffer the higher prices of commodities. And the other 75% will enjoy the higher disposable income and lesser donors and estate tax.

Where will these higher tax collections be allocated?

25% will go to the infrastructure projects.² While the rest be allocated to other government agencies and instrumentalities. Moreover, collections together with the project budget from the opposition will be allocated to the 100% salary increase of police and military officers.³ That means that opposition solons had a zero budget for their projects, a form of intimidation, to finance the salary increase of policemen who butchered poor suspected Filipino drug peddlers and users; milking the poor, enriching the police. They burdened the poor by passing to them excise taxes whose revenue will be allocated to the salary increase of personnel who targeted them, putting the law on their hands, during their bloody anti-drug campaign.

On the other side of the picture, the Philippine economy is booming raging from 6-7% Economic Growth.⁴ A good indicator that people from different sectors are producing well for the national development. With this growing economy, the government sees to create 12 Million jobs.⁵ But the contrary tells another story, as reported by Ibon Foundation, the economy loses jobs despite economic growth.⁶There is a domestic labor crises happening. People loosen faith to the ever growing economy. It is hard for them to find job even though the economy is good. Is the trickle down economy in effect? or is the rich becoming more rich while the poor become poorer?

On the country side, the increased Militarization in Lumad (native people) areas threatens their very existence. The Lumad people are one of the marginalized people in the Philippines.⁷ Majority of them are part of the 25% poverty incidence. They are the oppressed and marginalized individuals for a long time. Upon the declaration of Martial Law, many indigenous Lumad communities were alarmed that they will be attacked and displaced from their ancestral lands. In the past, Lumads were targetted because of industrialization. Their ancestral domains are forcibly taken thru violence and intimidation by government troops.