Rethink

This is what elections can do.

President Aquino is now quicker to leave the comforts of his bachelor pad and get his feet wet sympathizing with the victims of calamity, handing out the usual DSWD bags of relief goods. Recall that in previous calamities he preferred to stay dry on the excuse of not wanting to get in the way of relief efforts.

More important, there seems to be a rethinking of the presidential stance towards proposals to reduce income tax rates to account for inflation.

Only a few months ago, when legislators in both houses of Congress started moving to relieve wage earners of the highest income tax rates in the region, the President was adamant the prevailing tax rates should remain. Any relief for taxpayers, they said, would undermine our credit ratings – as if all of government was intended merely to produce good credit ratings.

Palace spokesmen run a distinct spin on the President’s refusal to alter the oppressive tax rates. Changes to the existing revenue system, they chorused, must be “holistic” rather than piecemeal.

The mantra was repeated by Aquino loyalist and Senate President Franklin Drilon. It was repeated, of course, by the President’s designated successor and political clone Mar Roxas.

For a while, the legislators working on tax relief were inclined to defy the Palace. They made noises suggesting they would pass the measure anyway, daring the President to veto the law they threatened to pass.

Malacañang summoned the tax relief advocates in Congress. Appropriately enlightened by the President, they seemed to have backed down, leaving the task of amending our seriously outdated tax laws to the next administration.

Then a number of developments on the matter must have registered in the Palace barometer.

Public opinion polls indicated that economic issues, principally jobs and wages, topped voter concerns. As might be expected, there is strong public enthusiasm on economic relief by way of reforming our tax rates.

Hewing closely to what the opinion polls indicate, both Jejomar Binay and Grace Poe put tax reform very high in their list of advocacies. It was clear this was the issue by which the administration candidate could be nailed.

Binay, in particular, has been characterizing the Aquino administration as both incompetent and insensitive. Aquino’s refusal to budge on the matter of adjusting personal income tax rates highlights insensitivity to the plight of our workers – not to mention incompetent economic management since our obsolete tax system is a drag on our ability to attract investments.

It is now clear the administration’s position on the tax relief proposal creates a yawning vulnerability for Mar Roxas and his team. They could not possibly support Aquino’s position and expect support from the electorate.

The administration seems to be changing its position on taxes. Both the Senate President and the Speaker are now saying the legislative initiative to amend the tax rates will be given due course.

Aquino’s clever spokesman Sonny Coloma now says the Palace recognizes Congress’ prerogative to make tax policy. Shouldn’t they have recognized that when they summoned the legislators earlier?

Selective injustice

Earlier this week, the Ombudsman dismissed and banned from the service the head and several officers of the Technology Resources and Livelihood Center (TLRC), an agency that seems designed precisely to “process” pork barrel funds.

On matters like this, the Ombudsman seems trigger-happy, as we saw when Makati mayor Junjun Binay was similarly dismissed two weeks ago. But what about the horde of politicians implicated in the Napoles scandal, the majority of whom are aligned with or closely cooperate with the administration?

The apparent partiality in the treatment of politicians has led to accusations of “selective justice.” Many of those for whom the wheels of justice seem to grind exceedingly slow have actually filed their certificates of candidacy and are actually poised to inflict themselves on public office once more.

Lawyer Levito Baligod, who has tried independently to push cases against the pork barrel legislators, laments the fact that 74 former and incumbent legislators implicated in the Napoles scandal have yet to be charged.  About P40 billion in congressional pork barrel funds, by the COA’s estimate, were diverted to 82 NGOs and very likely embezzled.

Dozens of these implicated politicians yet to be charged are now candidates. Leila de Lima’s resignation from the DOJ to run for senator makes the process of preparing charges against them even more complicated. At least one of those accused of involvement in the pork barrel scam is running on the same LP senatorial ticket as de Lima.

Baligod’s fears about the pork cases getting snowed under by political expediency is shared by Danilo Hassan of ZeroTolerance.Org, an anti-graft crusading group.

Using the COA’s special audit findings about the misuse of pork barrel funds during the 2007-2009 period, Hassan filed plunder complaints against former Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella and his wife. In addition, ZeroTolerance.Org complained the Fuentebellas failed to report in their SALNs substantial property holdings their reported incomes could not possibly support.

The plunder complaints filed by the group appear to be gathering dust at the Office of the Ombudsman.  Meanwhile, the subjects of the complaint are now preparing to consolidate their grip over Camarines Sur’s Partido district.

Former Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella is now running for congressman in CamSur’s fourth district, replacing his son Felix William. His wife Evelyn, also named in the complaint, is seeking reelection as mayor of Sagnay town. Another son, Arnulf Bryant, is the sitting mayor of Tigaon, the province’s poorest municipality.

Those who hoped the pork barrel scandal might have sounded the death knell for the political dynasties are about to be disappointed.