Everything that we buy nowadays is a lot more expensive. Inflation for May was computed at 4.6 percent, the highest in five years. Yet our brilliant finance people are insisting that the effect of the TRAIN law on inflation is only 0.46 percent. That maybe true, but no one among the consuming public believes that. Maybe they should tell that to the Marines.
What people understand, however, is that when the government increases gasoline prices by ₱7 a liter, prices of other commodities skyrocket and that is what has been happening. Although the official inflation rate is 4.5 percent, this does not tell the whole story. It is actually higher. Even the lawmakers who passed the TRAIN law with ease are now seeing the effects of the high prices on the people and are understandably getting worried and for good reason.
The next election is just around the corner. Our economic managers are insisting to stay the course with one saying that the people should stop being crybabies. Taxing citizens is a necessary evil to support economic progress. But this must be tempered with the ability of the tax payers to pay and still be left with something to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Do the finance people honestly believe that the P200 that will be given to the poorest of the poor enough to mitigate the way prices has gone up? If only they can redirect their brilliant minds to improving the collection of taxes, there will be less necessity to impose new taxes.
One example is our imports from China. Officially our records state that we buy about $15 billion from the Chinese. But the record from China is actually about $29 billion. We lost all the collectible taxes on $14 billion worth of goods and that is only China. The finance people could also have lessened the number of VAT exemptions as some lawmakers are suggesting. But their first choice is always to introduce new taxes. They have never come up with plans on how to improve the efficiency of tax collection.
Maybe they are not reading what is going on in Nicaragua and Jordan. What the people there are saying is exactly the same as what people here are saying: It is always the common people bearing the brunt of the hardships and not the rich. The lawmakers must be able to come to terms with the finance people with a solution that is not so burdensome to the poor.
* * *
When Senator Panfilo Lacson announced the construction of a new ₱10-billion Senate building on a two-hectare piece of land at the Bonifacio Global City, there were some who criticized the project. Senator Lacson has since corrected the construction cost as being ₱5 billion and not ₱10 billion as reported in the papers. The Senate has been holding sessions at the GSIS building near the Philippine Convention Center.
The House of Representatives on the other hand has its offices in a 20-hectare property located near Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. It was constructed during martial law when the 1973 constitution abolished the Senate and established a parliament in the mold of the British system.
Before martial law, the legislative building of both the House of Representatives and Senate were located in a single building which is the current National Museum building. The Senate is entitled to a building of its own instead of renting a facility from the GSIS and paying ₱127 million a year for a claustrophobic building that was not intended for legislative purposes. The design of the new building is also modern and very contemporary instead of the classic style like the Department of Finance and Tourism buildings located in the City of Manila. Traditionally, all the branches of the government were located in the City of Manila which is the capital of the country. This is not, however, the current case. The Executive and the Judiciary are but in the case of the Legislature, it is not.
The Senate will be in Taguig City, while the House of Representatives is in Quezon City. When both Houses were located in the same building before the declaration of martial law, all laws were enacted in Manila. Nowadays, Metro Manila is being used because the two Houses are located in two different cities which begs the question whether Metro Manila is now the Capital of the country instead of the City of Manila which everyone generally knows it to be.
This detail may not be important at all but it would be better to formalize it. Why the two Houses have to be separate at all has never really been satisfactorily explained. Maybe, the leaders of both Houses simply want to emphasize that both are separate and independent kingdoms or it is symptomatic of the kind of politics that is played in this country. The legislative building of the United States, the country where we inherited our system of government is in one building located in Washington DC. It is also the most important tourist attraction of the city. Our House of Representatives complex and the Senate building housed along Roxas Boulevard do not attract so many local and foreign tourists as far as I know.
One does not also see many of our elementary and high schools students going to both facilities on field trips to learn more about the way Congress passes our laws and learn more of our democratic system of government. Both facilities are not tourist-friendly. I hope this would be taken into consideration in the construction of the new Senate building.