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.
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