Credibility test

It has already been said by senior commentators that austerity measures in themselves will not solve the fiscal crisis. Not specially when they are nothing more than publicity gimmicks. But it can inspire the nation if leaders go through the length to be credible, that is to practise what they preach. I don’t know why it happens to me but I have this uncanny serendipity to be where I should be.

It was completely by accident that last year I was in Paseo Uno when Senate President Franklin Drilon was lunching with a publicist who once handled Erap’s image. Not long after, the senate president got more and more favorable media coverage. The two may not be related but it is uncanny that I should be at pricey Paseo Uno at the right or maybe it is the wrong (?) time. He also became head of the resuscitated Liberal Party.I was also in Paseo Uno when Senator Juan Flavier held his Senate office party there.

Last Wednesday it happened again. By sheer coincidence, I was in Paseo Uno with Abby Tan, whom most will remember for her courageous reporting for the Washington Post during EDSA 1 days, and Elizabeth Reyes, the best-selling author of Tropical Living. While Senate President Franklin Drilon made the front pages with a bottom half picture thinking hard on how the Senate can help stave the fiscal crisis and being among the senators who are allegedly giving up their pork, Mrs. Drilon was hosting a lunch at the same pricey Paseo Uno for the Senate spouses of the Philippines.

Senators wives are free to spend money however they wish and a lunch at Paseo Uno is only a few thousand pesos but an expensive lunch for Senators’ spouses in full public view

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Something is amiss in the public understanding of ‘pork barrel’. Pork barrel in itself is not wrong, what can be very wrong is how it is used. There is no direct acquisition of money as some mistakenly believe. In effect it is a division of the budget between the executive and the legislative. With that perspective it would be more relevant to congressmen/women because they have constituencies to which they are responsible than to senators who are elected at large. Unless senators have specific projects. ‘Pork’ stands for priority development assistance fund. As newly elected Senator Manuel Roxas puts it "In a manner of speaking, it is not mine to surrender or begin with." He could use pork for his project ‘palengkenomics’ to fund small and medium businesses like market vendors with low interest rates instead of being at the mercy of loan sharks.At least he has a program which those who give up their ‘pork barrel’do not. Does it make them better just because they have no program or have other sources of income? I don’t think so.

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PCCI representing 18,000 companies is set to barnstorm the country with investors and funders in tow. It is important that the group it is less ‘austere’ than it be an engine of production. Wise productive spending will be needed to create jobs.

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Feisty Rep. Herminio Teves welcomes the taipans’ donations but wants the president to name names and how much taxes each has paid. Under Section 71 of The Revised Tax Code, he said the President is authorized to make public the income tax payments of individuals and corporations. Only bold but doable measures on transparency in tax administration can strengthen tax compliance and ensure maximum tax collection by next year will get us out of the fiscal crisis.

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Gridlock is here again with administration executives battling with lawmakers. According to official sources, the Senate will hold public hearings every week to scrutinize the government’s fiscal plan before they even consider the proposed revenue measures. Senator Ralph Recto (to think that he is an administration senator, what can we expect from the opposition!) says only the tax amnesty and the rationalization of fiscal incentives will more likely be approved by Congress. Boncodin and Amatong disagree. The Senate proposals are "too simplistic" especially the proposed solution of Mr. Recto to swap pork cuts for the withdrawal of Palace-proposed tax bills. Ms. Amatong said the only way by which the country could solve its fiscal woes is through the introduction of new taxes which must go hand in hand with the improvement of tax collections. And to help the cash-strapped Napocor reduce its debts, Ms. Boncodin said it should be allowed to increase its rates.

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The brewing tax storm between religious groups and the government may have inadvertently led to a far bigger issue: whether the Roman Catholic Church ought to be exempted. INC and El Shaddai are profit making businesses which wield political power by selling religion but the Catholic Church is no different. It is more subtle but it wants to be a privileged institution. The separation of Church and State has only put the state at a disadvantage. The Church wields political power without paying for it. It is not so much the Church itself as an institution that is being criticized. It is the issue of exemption.

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In 1899 we had another US president who believed that God was on the side of U.S. empire. There's a new book which might be helpful in teaching some perspectives about the war against the Philippines. I have not read the book but those who are interested may want to know that THE FORBIDDEN BOOK: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons by Abe Ignacio, Enrique de la Cruz, Jorge Emmanuel, and Helen Toribio is out. It comes at an interesting time with comparisons being made between the Iraqi war and the Philippine war of independence. A Chicago Chronicle cartoon in January 1900 showed President McKinley preventing Uncle Sam from reading the "Forbidden Book" about the "true history of the war in the Philippines." Today, most Americans do not know anything about a 15-year war that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos. McKinley justified the war by claiming that God had told him to take the Philippines in order to civilize and Christianize the Filipinos. Not all Americans agreed. The Anti-Imperialist League, for example, was against the annexation convinced it was for less noble reasons like new overseas markets and raw materials for American industry.

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