The oil subsidy is another fertilizer scam
Why did I feel a certain degree of unease rather than awe when I read of the government response to the present crisis? It was not normal because I had always held in highest respect the profound thoughts of our key officials. The announcement, (please allow me to call it "testing the waters"), that Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral proposed to allocate two billion pesos as subsidy for the poor in Metro Manila to pay their electric bills did not seem a correct solution to the myriad of problems spawned by the spiraling of the prices of oil. To me, it was grotesque. How else could I label it when it smacked of a wasteful propaganda, and certainly, utter profligacy, in times of acute public want to throw away people's money for an undertaking that is not bound to be productive.
That the proposal came from the Department of Social Welfare was an indication that it was designed to test how the people would react. It was still a plan and not yet a policy declaration of the sitting president. If the suggestion to raid our revenues would be exposed merely to reprise what happened to the humongous sum allocated before the May 2004 elections to buy fertilizer for the use of such places as the concrete streets in Makati, then government authorities would just call it one brilliant idea whose time did not yet come. They would simply refuse giving Sec. Cabral, implementing order. On the other hand, if it would go unnoticed, or worse, it would receive a deluge of scripted endorsements, such as those symbolized by the "unity walks", the administration of Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would have the same opportunity to use our taxes in as probably intrepid way as the odious swine scam.
The cover to this obvious political propaganda is the alleged assistance to the needy. Even if I am willing to admit that the proposal is laudable, for indeed, it can be rationalized by the constitutional precept of "social justice", it does not escape me that it is designed, for the nth time, to target the areas where the president consistently failed in the survey. Particularly, the planned dole-outs will be given to those living below the poverty line in Metro Manila as if there were no poorer electricity-using Filipinos in the provinces.
The fact that Metro Manilans had always rated the president very poorly in the notes of enumerators is, to me, the most plausible reason why the plan was ever so hatched.
Just the same, the subsidy, if eventually given, will result in a quick dissipation of the funds generated by the VAT. Unfortunately, the beneficiaries will be the ones who, I believe, never had chipped in a single peso by way of tax. In other words, it shall look like Mr. X paying tax exclusively to be used for the sole benefit of Mr. Y.
This proposed subsidy does not yield to the better objective of minimizing the importation of oil neither does it promote the intelligent use of this import. On the contrary, by giving money to the poor to pay their electric bills, our government encourages them to continue their spending ways because, there are taxes that will be used to defray part of the burden.
Let us not lose sight of the fact that our horrendous problems are rooted on our dependency on imported oil. Addressing this issue, instead of increasing their political mileage, must be our leaders' primordial concern. The projected assistance of two billion pesos (or is it six billion?) can be used for germane and developmental activities. With this money, we can pool our scientists to fund the frenetic research for such alternative resources as bio fuel from sugar cane, jethropa and coconut. It can also tap our abundant geothermal resources. These actions will take time and commencing now is most timely.
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