GMA allies urge Senate to pass tax exemption bill

Allies of President Arroyo in the House of Representatives urged senators yesterday to approve a bill that seeks to exempt minimum wage earners from paying income tax.

In a statement, Representatives Eduardo Veloso of Leyte and Edwin Uy of Isabela said the Senate ways and means committee chaired by Sen. Ralph Recto should endorse the bill despite the failure of Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and Trade Secretary Peter Favila to attend its initial hearing on Tuesday.

They said failure on the part of Teves and Favila to attend the hearing is not enough reason for the Recto committee to freeze the tax exemption proposal that would benefit not only workers receiving the minimum wage but all fixed-income earners.

Anyway, the committee will have another opportunity to invite the two Cabinet members, they said.

Uy said Teves, being a former congressman, knows the importance of executive-legislative cooperation and would have attended Recto’s hearing had it not been for a prior engagement.

According to reports, the finance secretary held a press conference on Tuesday. Present in that news event was Commissioner Jose Mario Buñag of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, whom Recto also invited to his hearing.

Their failure to respond to the invitation angered Recto and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. The two senators said if Teves and Favila were not interested in giving the Recto committee data related to the tax exemption proposal, the panel might as well not endorse it.

The failure of the two Cabinet members to appear in the hearing was apparently still due to controversial Executive Order 464, which the Supreme Court has effectively struck down as unconstitutional.

In EO 464, the President banned Cabinet officials and other executive personnel, including low-ranking soldiers and policemen, from appearing in Senate inquiries.

The Supreme Court rules that Cabinet members should attend congressional investigations. However, when asked to provide data related to national security or state secrets, these officials can request the President to invoke "executive privilege."

Another Arroyo loyalist, Majority Leader Prospero Nograles, said the Supreme Court decision is not yet "final and executory."

The Senate cannot thus compel executive officials to appear in its hearings, he said.

"The Senate cannot just wave around this ruling and start compelling the executive to appear before its inquiries because as of this time, there is no final entry of judgment until the SC can fully clarify certain aspects of its decision," he said.

At the same time, Nograles, who is in the United States, proposed a code of conduct that would effectively clip the powers of the Senate to conduct inquiries.

At present, the Senate and the House have their respective set of rules on investigations in aid of legislation.

Under the proposal of Nograles, questions should be submitted in writing to the Cabinet member being asked to testify in an inquiry 15 days before his scheduled appearance.