Restiveness at BIR?

Our sources were correct: the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) did exceed its target collection for the month of June 2006. Last month’s collection reached P50.37 billion, 2.72 percent more than the P49.03-billion target, and 29.8 percent higher than the P38.8 billion collected in the same month last year. From January to June this year, the BIR has collected a total of P318.39 billion, beating the levels attained during the same period last year by 21.95 percent.

Now that the BIR is performing well and collecting over and above target levels, do we hear any applause from the agency’s erstwhile detractors who wanted the BIR pilloried for a single month’s "shortfall" last April 2006?

Why has the BIR’s monthly performance become so important to the public? This is because the topic of revenue collection has been made into some kind of telenovela. It will be recalled that some quarters whipped up an imagined "furor" over the April performance and wanted a public lynching for the soft-spoken Finance Secretary Gary Teves and his most valuable revenue collection asset, the equally low-key BIR commissioner Jose Mario Buñag. A big deal was being made out of a one-month shortfall despite the fact that the BIR had sustained a performance improvement ever since the President named an honest-to-goodness tax lawyer in Buñag to run the agency.

Are BIR’s woes over, now that the previous month’s collection levels are above target? Will these parties now leave Teves and Buñag alone to do their jobs of narrowing the budget deficit gap? Or is this merely the calm before the storm?

Recent developments inside the BIR seem to indicate the worst is not over yet for the agency.

Sources have reported a brewing restiveness among BIR employees, stemming from a highly-suspect and ill-timed reshuffle of deputy commissioners who have supported Buñag well during the difficult period. Reports say the able deputy commissioner for legal, Lillian Hefti has transferred to operations while depcoms Virginia Trinidad, Norma Lipana and Lucita Rodriguez also had to play the musical chairs game.

Were the transfers made to simply accommodate the entry of a new deputy commissioner, a certain Greg Cabantac? Why is the reshuffle being done now when the BIR is doing well with the team that is in place? Why change the players midstream just as they are catching up with the opponent? Are they trying to lose the game?

Not much is known about Cabantac except that he was formerly environment undersecretary. He does not carry credentials similar to those of Bunag when the latter came in as deputy commissioner for legal to help out then BIR chief Guillermo Parayno. But do not wish to belittle Cabantac. He must be given the same opportunity to prove his mettle at the post. But forewarned is forearmed. He should be made aware of the "discomfort" BIR employees say they feel about his entry.

Cabantac has been described as "high-handed" and "demanding". We will not dignify those rumors; suffice it to say that such talks are taking place and that he would be better off knowing them.

If the BIR continues to perform well this month, then the issue of the apparent bad timing of his entry would be laid to rest. But if the collection levels fall below target, the suspicious nature and timing of his entry would only be further noticed. Speculations are rife that he is the "fifth column demolition squad" and that he was placed at the BIR to slow down the Buñag team and make the BIR look bad once more with a July shortfall.

We do not buy these speculations at this point. We do not subscribe to the view that Cabantac was merely placed by the same shadowy group that was using the April figures to shackle both Teves and Bunag in order to resurrect the "shortfall" issue. But that could be the sorry conclusion if things do not turn out well following his entry.

It may be good for those orchestrating BIR’s woes to know that at the end of the day, what they are damaging is President Arroyo’s revenue targets, not Teves’ nor Buñag’s. Without those revenues, this country is not moving forward.

So, isn’t the orchestrated move to damage the BIR a destabilization effort too? The July 2006 figures should douse cold water on our suspicions – or confirm them.

Not so hidden agenda

Dr. Rick Warren, author of the best selling book The Purpose Driven Life, renowned global strategist and consultant to corporate chiefs and movie stars and recently named by Newsweek magazine as one of the "15 People Who Make American Great",  will be in Manila to launch the PEACE Plan at the ULTRA on July 25 and 26.  PEACE Plan is a lay movement aimed at addressing five global challenges – spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy and poor education. Global PEACE Plan is a grassroots church-to-church strategy designed to mobilize average church members to do normal tasks that can change the community, the nearby communities, regional area crossing cultural barriers, and eventually, the world. PEACE stands for Plant churches to address spiritual darkness, Equip servant leaders to address corrupt leadership, Assist the poor to address extreme poverty, Care for the sick to address pandemic diseases, Educate the next generation to address illiteracy and lack of education.

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