Senator Grace Poe has called out the Executive department for its lack of cooperation on its own priority bill, the Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer, which aims to allow banks to offload their soured loans and free up more funds to fuel the economy.
At the hearing of the Senate committee on banks, bureaus under the Department of Finance, specifically the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Treasury took opposite sides on the issue, with the BTr expressing full support for FIST and the BIR expressing strong opposition to it.
With the economy experiencing its biggest fall in eight decades, the Executive, the Finance department in particular, should heed its own call for unity.
“I’d like to note also that this is a priority measure, and yet it’s disappointing to see that the heads of agencies didn’t really attend,” Poe said.
“They’re the ones saying that the economy needs it now. So, how will we know for sure that the economy needs it now if we don’t even have a commitment, an actual presence from those heads explaining to us in detail what their commitments are also and the safeguards they’re willing to accept.”