NP bets advocate wage hikes and no new taxes

MANILA, Philippines – Nacionalista Party (NP) senatorial candidates vowed to push for an increase in the minimum wage in order to reflect the rise in the cost of living.

In a talk with The STAR editors and reporters yesterday, six of the 12 NP senatorial bets agreed that it was time to review the minimum wage.

Lawyer Gwen Pimentel said consultation with the stakeholders is necessary to find out how much should be added to the minimum wage.

Sen. Pia Cayetano, also a lawyer, said it must first be determined how big an increase would be sustainable and can be absorbed by both the private and public sector.

Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza, who are running under the NP as guest candidates, pointed out that they have been pushing for a P125 across-the-board legislated wage hike since they entered Congress as party-list representatives.

Ocampo, who co-authored the proposed legislated wage hike in the House of Representatives, said he would file a counterpart bill in the Senate if elected.

Ramon Mitra III reminded his audience that the last legislated wage hike came during the time of his father, the late Ramon Mitra Jr. when he was Speaker of the House.

Business groups recently stated that they cannot afford wage increases at this time because they have not yet fully recovered from the global financial crisis.

No to new taxes

The NP bets were also unanimous in their stand against the Department of Finance’s proposal to raise the value added tax (VAT) rate from 12 to 15 percent in order to generate more revenues for the government.

They saw no need for the next administration to immediately impose new taxes such as the proposed VAT rate hike.

They agreed that the tax collection effort must improve by plugging loopholes so that the proposed new taxes would not have to be considered right away.

Adel Tamano, who serves as one of NP’s spokesmen, noted that tax collection efficiency has gone down over the past few years by around five to 10 percent.

He said the decline in the tax collection efficiency translates to around P300 billion in lost revenues for the government.

“The issue here is not bigger fiscal incentives but tax collection efficiency,” Tamano said, vowing to push for the repeal of the provision in the budget law on automatic appropriation for debt servicing.

He noted that debt service has become the biggest expenditure of the government every fiscal year, which is unconstitutional because education should have the biggest share of the budget.

Ocampo said the government should have sufficient revenues to finance its expenditures if the automatic appropriation for debt service is repealed.

Maza, on the other hand, pointed out that she and Ocampo have always been against the increase in the VAT rate and view this as a regressive measure.

She said the government should tap other options to increase revenues such as increasing tariffs on imports, particularly of agricultural products.

Mitra said that no new taxes should be implemented at this time because the people are still suffering from low wages. –Michael Punongbayan (The Philippine Star)