Pro-poor tax measure

Our priorities have gone awry. We commemorate occasions like today, the supposed, much touted, day of "love", in its purely physical and tangible form by trying to keep the world record established a year ago and recognized in the Guinness Book, of having the most number of kissers smooching simultaneously. A kissing country we have indeed become, but it does not mean we are also the most "loving" people the world over. We have distorted our concept of "love" by emphasizing and celebrating its physical manifestation than its spiritual aspect exemplified by the real St. Valentine, the Roman Bishop who gave up his life for the love of God. It is not far fetch to conclude that such commemoration will not only increase the sales of the products of the "lovapalooza" sponsors but may even contribute to the acceleration of our population growth rate where we are bound to establish another world record.

To be sure, this twisted sense of values is also the real reason why our Congressmen and women see only the material aspect in solving our population problem through the purely material and artificial means of controlling births. They have doggedly insisted that our worsening poverty is due to our increasing population and so they kept their focus on checking it even by the use of medically proven harmful means as long as they are checked more effectively and quickly. This kind of fixation somehow deprived them of looking at other and more plausible causes of our worsening poverty. Fortunately, we still have some discerning members of the Upper House who can see a broader picture that covers both the physical and spiritual or mental aspects of the problem. Senator Richard Gordon is one of them. He believed that the lack of good education, not overpopulation is the cause of poverty in our land. Thus he called for the nation "to focus on revitalizing education or face the consequence of worsening poverty" in his speech during the 2nd League of Extraordinary and Admired Pilipino (LEAP) leaders Congress. According to the Senator, "the downward spiral of our educational system is an alarming concern which must take priority over the rest of the country’s problem". Aside from the poor quality of our teachers and students, he cited the astonishing lack of resources which amounts to approximately P30 billion; as of 2004, the country needs 36.6 million textbooks, 57,930 classrooms and 49,700 teachers. The teacher shortage has resulted in a ration of one teacher per 75 students!

The problem mainly consists in raising additional revenues. And Senator Gordon has an idea. He proposes to tax text messages and utilize the revenue as a special fund for education. The proposed law, to be known as the Philippine Educational Reform Act will create a commission that will be tasked to control, manage, administer, and monitor the disbursement, use and allocation of funds generated through text financing. The levy, assessment and collection of said tax will only be for three years after which the concerns regarding the shortage of classrooms, textbooks and teachers is expected to have been addressed.

Taxing text messages does not violate the rule that taxation must be uniform and equitable as provided by the Constitution (Sec. 28, Art. VI). A tax is uniform within the constitutional requirement, when it operates with the same force and effect in every place where the subject of it is found. Uniformity is equivalent to the requirement of valid classification under the equal protection clause (Pepsi vs. Butuan 24 SCRA 789). "Equitable" merely emphasizes the rule on uniformity. In fact, the constitution (Art. VI Sec. 29 [3]), allows taxation for a special purpose where the tax collected will be treated as a special fund to be paid out for such purpose only like this proposed fund for revitalization of education.

Gordon emphasized the need for this revenue measure "if the lives of the masses are to be uplifted and the country is to become globally competitive, adding that an educated public contributes to long term development of the nation because, with highly skilled workers, more opportunities would be available". This is one tax measure that is pro-poor rather imposing additional burden on them.

Instead of focusing on those harmful population control measures therefore, our legislators in the lower house may well look into proposed legislation that will surely help in solving our poverty problem.

(Attention all UST High School Alumni: grand reunion on Feb. 26, 2005 at the Manila Hotel starting 4 p.m. Tickets available at site or call Grace, Tel. 3738888 local 635)

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