So be it with E-VAT, but results are expected

Now that the E-VAT has been pushed down the throats of the people, whose sufferings have already been acute enough owing to high prices of basic goods, the government should show visible evidence of frugality in its use of financial resources. The new revenue should not be a go-signal for wanton expenditure, otherwise the sacrifices of the average citizen would amount to nothing.

The people are accepting this bitter pill no matter how painful. Their opposition has fallen on deaf ears. Nothing they have said against this revenue measure has touched the heart of the national leadership. Nor of their spokesmen in the halls of Congress. So the masses must bear it all like the cross of Christ. But the whole affair must end in something good like the passion of the Lord. If not, God help this country!

The argument that this new taxation would solve our budgetary deficit and therefore lift up the economy must be proven true. More jobs must materialize, productivity must increase, and the quality of life of the man in the street must improve. In short, if E-VAT is the hope of the Philippine economy, as its advocates have advertised, it must produce results not just on paper but in observable developments. And while we watch and wait for these outcomes, the government must show evidence of judiciousness in the use of financial resources.

One thing it can do is trim down the personnel component of various offices. It is a common observation that most government offices, local or national, are top heavy in human resources. A job that can be done by one man is being performed by two or three workers with the result that these employees just make time in their seats without doing something that contributes to the efficiency of their offices. Duplication of functions is also observable.

For example, in DepEd, there is a set of subject supervisors in the divisional offices, but in regional offices there is also another set of supervisory staff whose basic function is also supervisory in nature. Some armchair technocrats must have overlooked this matter, but when we directors proposed changes during our tenure years back nothing happened. We realized then that most department heads had the ego-boosting mind-set of the more the merrier insofar as personnel are concerned.

Related to duplication of functions is the tendency of politicians, especially those in Congress, to chop-chop offices for the dubious aim of ensuring efficiency. One classic example is RA 7722 known as the Higher Education Act of 1994. This law created the Commission of Higher Education, which is separate and independent from the Department of Education. To carry out its functions, CHED operates regional offices with their corresponding administrative and supervisory staff thereby increasing the expenditure program for education. The question is, has this chop-chop job improved the quality of tertiary education? The answer can be gleaned from an international assessment four or five years ago when only one university in the country made it to the roster of quality institutions.

Economy through a lean bureaucracy is only one approach to reduction of expenditure. More significant than this is reduction of the budgetary allocation for the executive and legislative offices.

Has there been a decrease in the discretionary fund, intelligence fund, or other funds allocated to Malacañang? What about the pork barrels of congressmen (P200 million for senators, P60 million for each congressman in 2004), have these been lowered? It is doubtful because the 2006 budget has over-shot the trillion-peso mark. So happy days continue for these government maharajahs, while the people suffer and suffer.

The truth is, VAT would not have been needed had we been careful in spending our money in the past decades. Unless we check our profligate ways our financial travail will continue, VAT or no VAT.