THE poorest of the poor will be getting a measly P200 per month from the government to help them mitigate the impact of the administration’s tax reform package, whose effects they repeatedly branded as “temporary” and would not lead to higher prices of basic goods, the Budget department said Wednesday.
Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, who defended ther recentyly passed package, said the P200 monthly dole “is in response to critics who say that
TRAIN—the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law—is anti-poor because the informal sector and already tax-exempt wage earners will be faced with higher excise taxes.”
The move, Diokno said, would “augment the incomes of the poorest 50 percent of households” who would be affected by the new tax package.
Some P24.5 billion has been allocated for unconditional cash grants to the poorest 50 percent of households identified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development, with monthly subsidies expected to increase from P200 to P300 by 2019 and 2020, with an allotment of P38.5 billion in the national budget in the coming years.
“In the long-term, TRAIN should even lead to lower prices as it will result to (sic) better productivity and lower transportation costs with superior infrastructure,” Diokno said.
Meanwhile, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board on Wednesday warned operators of public utility vehicles against overcharging passengers following the higher excise tax for petroleum products under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law.
“There is no increase in the jeepney fare, no increase in the UV fare, no increase in the bus fare, no increase in the TNVS, TNCs, no increase in the P2P (point-to-point)…there must be a petition for a fare hike,” LTFRB board member lawyer Aileen Lizada told reporters in an ambush interview on Wednesday.
Lizada said any overcharging on the part of the operators would have corresponding sanctions.
Under the Joint Administrative Order 2014-01 of the Department of Transportation, first offense violators will face a P5,000 fine, second offense will result in a fine of P10,000 and the impounding of the unit for 30 days.
Third and subsequent violations will be subject to a fine of P15,000 and the cancellation of the certificate of public convenience.
Transport group Pasang Masda earlier bared its plan to file a petition before the LTFRB asking to raise the minimum jeepney fare of P8 to P12, saying the increase would allow operators to cushion the “domino effect” on prices of the newly-implemented tax measure.
Meanwhile, the fisherfolk under the group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas decried the evident impact of President Rodrigo Duterte’s TRAIN on the fishing sector, particularly the abrupt oil price hike that affects small-scale fisherfolk who regularly consume gasoline or diesel for their fishing operations.
Based on the group’s initial investigation in the fishing capital Navotas City, price of gasoline as of Jan. 4, 2018 had surged up to P49.20 per liter from P43 per liter before the new tax reform was implemented.
This means a small fisherfolk who regularly consumes 12 liters of gasoline per fishing trip has to prepare at least P600 from P516 for the gasoline alone.
Pamalakaya said the cost of petroleum products ate up almost 80 percent of their production trip.
Other production costs include food needs of the boat owner and its companion which costs P150, and the tricycle fare to buy gasoline in the market that costs P40.
Now a total of P790 from P706 is needed to cover the production cost per fishing trip of six to eight hours.
The group noted the output of every fishing trip does not usually guarantee that it could recover the amount spent during the production due to prevalent decrease of the municipal fish catch, which now ranges from two to five kilos per fishing trip. Because they cannot even earn the cost of production, fisherfolk have to borrow money with excessive interest rates to cover the production costs of their next fishing operation, making them buried in debt.
“The fisherfolk [are] already battered by numerous issues besetting the fishing sector; namely, the fish catch depletion due to corporate plunder of marine resources, the anti-fisherfolk law that allows commercial fishing fleets to exploit municipal waters, and the government’s lack of support to our sector. Now the skyrocketing prices of oil products under the new tax-reform law will exacerbate the miserable condition of the country’s poorest of the poor,” Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya chairperson, said in a statement.
“Because of TRAIN’s oil-price hike, fisherfolk have to cut their fishing trip from the regular six to eight hours to four to six hours, they also have to reduce their fishing days from the average of four to five days a week to three days a week.
This also means diminution of their already small income and days of starvation,” Hicap said.
“We want to remind President Duterte that the small-scale fishers do not have a regular income so the decrease of income tax is actually worthless to us, but whether we like it or not, we would be bearing the brunt of unbridled increase of basic commodities and oil products,” Hicap said…
Pamalakaya called for the scrapping of TRAIN it said was a burden not only to the fishing sector but to all the hardworking Filipino people.
“We don’t need a new tax-reform law that will only worsen the condition of the poor, working Filipino people, but an affordable basic commodities and social services that will make us more productive citizens,” said Hicap.