“We cannot fight a war with saliva,” said Minority Leader Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, adding the talkative ones should be holding the guns when the invaders come. Enrile was taking issue with his arch-enemy Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago who sponsored a Senate resolution insisting the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement the Philippines signed with the United States in April 2014 must be submitted to the Senate for ratification.
Santiago, an independent presidential candidate, was able to muster 15 senators to sign the resolution. Senator Antonio Trillanes voted against the resolution as he agreed with Malacañang that Edca is not a treaty but an executive agreement. Edca, an enhancement of the already-existing Visiting Forces Agreement, gives US troops wider access to Philippine military bases like Subic for its warships to dock and refuel, aside from allowing the Americans to store ammunitions and weapons.
Enrile, one of three senators who abstained from the voting, said the issue is best left to the Supreme Court where it has been elevated. The former defense secretary said the Philippines with its limited military capability cannot stand up to China’s navy and therefore has to sign a defense agreement and align itself with a Pacific power like the United States. This is why Enrile was sorely missed in the Senate during his more than a year in detention. He is the only one who can stand up to spitfire Santiago’s scathing remarks that intimidate the other senators into a committee on silence.
“It is the government’s responsibility to maintain the security of the state and sign military agreements with any country that can boost the Philippine military which is the weakest in Asia,“ Enrile pointed out.
The Senate sparring over Edca came even as the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting agreed not to discuss the contentious South China Sea dispute during the conference. But Enrile expressed the view that not raising China’s encroachment in the West Philippine Sea issue during Apec would be a lost opportunity.
Although not on the Apec agenda, President Benigno Aquino III and US President Barack Obama will have a meeting at the sidelines possibly to discuss the rising tension in the South China Sea. Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among the world leaders coming for the Apec summit hosted by Manila. There are speculations Xi and Aquino might also hold a meeting when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi came days ahead of Apec to meet with his counterpart, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario. Foreign ministers don’t meet just to discuss details of an international conference. That is best left at the ministerial level. Did they discuss the talking points of a possible closed-door meeting between Xi and Aquino?
Beijing could be rethinking its hard-line stance in the South China Sea territorial dispute after its setback from the ruling of the Hague international arbitration court that it has jurisdiction over the case filed by Manila contesting China’s nine-dash line. The Hague court will take up oral arguments in the case on Nov. 24 to 30 with or without China’s participation in proceedings held under the mandate of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Kim Henares hikes collections
Commissioner Kim Henares is the smiling face of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. But Henares has more reasons to be smiling these days. Her tax collections from the so-called sin products like tobacco and alcohol rose by 16 percent or more than P91 billion from January to end of September. The excise tax from alcohol and tobacco exceeded the P78.4 billion collected during the same period last year.
There was apprehension after the passage by Congress of a higher tax on sin products that government tax revenues would suffer as a result of the higher cost of alcohol and cigarettes. But the contrary happened as smokers and drinkers simply switched to lower-priced products that were just as good in quality.
Tax from cigarette alone accounted for P61.4 billion—an increase from P51.18 billion last year. Revenues from fermented alcohol and spirits combined summed up to P29.7 billion, up from P17.8 billion for the same nine-month period last year. A sizable part of earnings from sin products are earmarked for health care services of the country’s poor.
What this increase in BIR revenues attests to is Kim Henares’ dogged determination to collect taxes and the willingness of the sin products manufacturers to pay the right amount of taxes. This also augurs well for the BIR which is looking at a P1.64-trillion revenue including an estimated P140-billion taxes from alcohol and tobacco, including minerals and motor vehicles.
Mighty Corporation, a cigarette maker for the past 70 years, was the first to install close circuit television in its manufacturing plant in compliance with the BIR’s requirement to prevent pilferage of products that could end up in illegal sale without the necessary tax stamps.