Giving in too much to a centralized government

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is thinking of lowering our income taxes. Sounds too good to be true! But is BIR Commissioner Kim Hernares serious in this proposal or are we seeing her doing some kind of damage control, after she made pronouncements that hurt the sensibilities of our schoolteachers and doctors of medicine who were subject to a cartoon offensive to all doctors who are lumped as tax evaders?

I really believe that the BIR campaign to exhort our people to pay their taxes dutifully and properly is a good campaign. However their method of literally tagging all doctors as tax evaders is a wrong approach. Did the BIR check how much doctors living in the countryside get for their medical fees many of them get a chicken or vegetables as payment? Should their secretaries issue a receipt for one chicken or a basket of vegetables, when it is clearly a barter deal? Sure we like our income taxes to be lowered, but the BIR must learn to be fair to all taxpayers and expose only the tax evaders.

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There is no doubt that legitimate gun owners or holders of gun licenses are not happy that the new regulations for gun ownership requiring gun owners to go all the way to Camp Crame in Metro Manila to secure their new or renewed gun licenses. I got a press release by PRO-GUN groups via my Facebook account denouncing this "Draconian" move.

Actually this problem is not happening only with the Firearms & Explosive's Unit (FEU) of the Philippine National Police (PNP), but it is also happening to many national government agencies as well under the presidency of Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III. He has only tightened his grip on the central government, thus leaving many regional directors as overpaid postmen or figurehead of their respective national government agencies.

A case in point is the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) where my son, Capt. JV had to fly to CAAP headquarters in Manila for his physical examinations. For the first time in decades, Prof. Perry Fajardo asked that poignant question of viability or necessity for Regional Development Councils (RDC) because apparently the Aquino regime sees its irrelevance.

In securing your firearm licenses, one needs to appear before the gods in Camp Crame for "personal appearance." Who the heck pushed for this idea? Doesn't the PNP have regional headquarters where gun holders can make personal appearance? Why should we all go to Metro Manila? Surely the PNP, especially their Traffic Command (Trafcom) knows that this stupidity would only add more people to Metro Manila and aggravate their already worsening traffic problem in the nation's capital.

What next can we expect from the Aquino regime? When we renew our driver's licenses or passports, we would all fly to Metro Manila? Like what I said, the problem lies upon the way that the Aquino regime is operating the national government. We know too well that the Philippine government has a centralized system of governance. But sometime in the mid-90's some level of autonomy was allowed and shared with the passage of the Local Government Code, where many powers of national government agencies were devolved to local government units. This was supposedly the beginning of our road to a "Federal Republic of the Philippines." Now we have turned back!

But under the Aquino regime, powers are rein back to Malacañang at the doorstep of the Office of the President. In short, this move has only caused a reversal of previous efforts by former administrations to devolve authority to the respective regions of this country. I can only think of one reason why this is happening to our country. It is because of the presence of people like Ronald Llamas, the presidential political adviser who is reportedly known to be a leftist and a friend to the Communist underground.

This is how Communists operate their governments and our best example was the unlamented Union of the Soviet Socialists Republic (USSR). I'm sure that you know why the USSR has ceased to exist and it is because their centralized style of governance was no longer working for the greater benefit of the people under their control. So one can also say this of the Aquino regime that is no longer working for the greater good of the Filipino people; that legitimate gun owners have to spend a lot of money plus hotel expenses in order to secure or renew their gun licenses is a step backwards. What next? Should we pay our taxes to the BIR also in Manila?

I'm sure that if you are a legitimate gun holder living in faraway southern Mindanao, you would be tempted not to obey these new gun regulations and wait for better times or a new government that would take over control from the Aquino regime. I sure hope that the legislative branch of the government, our senators or congressmen would haul the PNP to a full blown investigation as to why we are moving backwards on this issue.

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