An official appealed to the Bureau of Internal Revenue on Friday to delay the implementation of its memo ordering online sellers to register their businesses and settle their taxes not later than July 31.
Rep. Alfred Delos Santos made his appeal after the bureau issued a circular on June 10 outlining the obligations of people conducting business transactions using all platforms, including electronic media and digital channels, to ensure online sellers were tax compliant.
“While we are cognizant of the role of the BIR to enforce tax laws and collect taxes to boost government coffers, we cannot set aside the dire situation of small businesses and those who lost their jobs who are trying to make a living by selling online,” Delos Santos said.
“We are living in extraordinary times, and I strongly feel that the memorandum is ill-timed.”
‘Go after scammers’
A House leader on Friday urged the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police to go after online sellers of fake COVID-19-related products who, she said, were making a killing victimizing unsuspecting buyers.
“There are so many of these vultures who take advantage of the pandemic. They peddle their wares on the Internet, and so many of our countrymen unfortunately fall victim to these scammers,” assistant majority leader and Quezon City Rep. Precious Castelo said.
Castelo, vice chairman of the House committee on Metro Manila Development, said the NBI and the PNP’s anti-cybercrime unit should step in to protect the public.
‘Defer tuition increase’
Senator Win Gatchalian has urged private Higher Education Institutions to defer their petitions to increase their tuition as most families have been struggling with financial problems since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country.
Some of the HEIs submitted their tuition-increase applications even before the enforcement of lockdown measures, according to the Commission on Higher Education. It also reported during a recent Senate panel hearing that the dip in enrollment among the country’s 3.5-million higher education students would further compel the HEIs to increase their tuition.
With the number of jobless Filipinos soaring to a record 7.3 million amid the pandemic, Gatchalian said, raising the tuition would burden struggling families and increase the number of dropouts.
Parents encouraged
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte is encouraging parents to still enroll their children this calendar year.
“First of all, I want to encourage parents who are having second thoughts of enrolling their children. It does not mean their children will not learn anything if there is no face-to-face education,” Belmonte said.
Among the provisions the city government is offering are a cash incentive to the top three students in senior high school, Joy of Public Service award of P10,000, free scholarship for the top senior high school graduate from the Jorge Amado Araneta Foundation, QC Balik Eskwela subsidy, P120-million budget for the reproduction of learning modules for 254,708 kinder to grade 6 pupils, P1.2-billion budget for pre-loaded tablets for grade 7 to senior high school students, and free school supplies.
Assistance offered
The city government of Pasay has offered to bring stranded individuals staying under the Ninoy Aquino International Airport flyover bridge to Villamor Air Base Elementary School to have a safer place to stay.
Mayor Emi Rubiano also asked his fellow officials to accommodate the people who were stranded for more than two weeks and were temporarily staying under the NAIA flyover due to the cancellation of their flights.
Some of those people do not have plane tickets, but have proceeded to the airport hoping for a chance to fly home.
Rubiano expressed concern that the people under the flyover were risking their health following the onslaught of Typhoon “Butchoy” in Metro Manila.
Department of OFWs
Senator Christopher Lawrence Go has stressed the need for the passage of his proposed Department of Overseas Filipino Workers bill as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect migrant workers, of whom many had lost their jobs and were forced to return home.
He said there was an urgent need for the new department because of the impact of the pandemic on migrant workers.
He said the Department of Labor and Employment needed to concentrate on domestic labor concerns while the new department, if created, could concentrate on migrant workers.
Cash aid
Cash aid to public utility vehicle drivers under the Social Amelioration Program should no longer face delay with the promised electronic disbursement of the second tranche, Senator Grace Poe said.
“No delay in the distribution of assistance is justified. No more lives should be put in peril because of the lack of urgency in handing out lifelines to the people,” said Poe, the head of the Senate’s public services committee.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development is expected to electronically release the SAP’s second tranche to about 18 million families under the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act.
Based on the government’s June 8 report, all 98,132 target PUV drivers had received cash aid from the list submitted by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.
Counseling services
The Department of Labor and Employment said Friday aside from facilitating the return of displaced Filipino workers abroad, counseling and helpline services should always be available to them.
“First of all, we must find ways to facilitate their return. Second, an array of counseling and helpline services should always be available to our OFWs, especially those still onboard cruise ships,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a statement.
He made his statement in the wake of the death of Filipino seafarer Mariah Jocson whose body was found inside her cabin on Thursday while awaiting repatriation.
Jocson, an assistant waiter for the cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas, was found dead in her cabin in Barbados, where she was transferred for repatriation.