“How can Congress exact new taxes from an angry public, where people have realized they always pay, yet get nothing?”
IT LOOKS a lot like déjà vu.
I came back to the country in late 1981, and as instructed by Ninoy Aquino in Boston, went to Doy Laurel. To cut a long story short, I was soon devoting full time to a nascent opposition grouping of “traditional” politicians, many Nacionalistas, Liberals, some even from the so-called “progressives.”
We started with what I called “truth rallies” in the key capitals of the country, and I wrote a pamphlet titled “Over-spending, Over-taxing, Over-borrowing and Over-stealing,” and laid it at the doorsteps of the Marcos administration.
At that time, the economy was beginning to reach debt-crisis levels, and ordinary folks were beginning to question a dictatorship far too long in power, and scandalized by the lifestyles of the high and mighty.
Ninoy came back despite warnings by both enemies and friends, and was dastardly murdered in the airport.
We met him with banners proclaiming, “Hindi Ka Nag-iisa.” A week after, the Left came up with an instant movement, “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All” (JAJA), which lumped the deaths of rebels and victims of human rights violations alongside the death of Ninoy.
Still, it took two and a half years of protest rallies and wide-spreading agitation before the dictatorship fell, with a little help from Uncle Sam in the final months.
Historical digression does not give the right timeline parallels.
Social media was non-existent then. These days, it is the king of communications. Knowledge is power, even if sometimes fake news deceives.
Cory had her chance after Ferdinand I, but instead of revolutionary change, she gave us a democratic space that was ruled by traditional politicians and an economy dominated by the few.
Succeeding leaders preserved the new status quo, some introducing reforms, some others dismantling the same.
But corruption persisted, with brief interludes of less, and long periods of excess, even as we changed presidents and elected the same dynasts in the legislature and the local governments.
As we keep quoting, “plus ca change…”
Through all these episodes over almost four decades, it is always the people who pay.
Politicians and oligarchs use “other people’s money” (OPM) through behest loans, through peddling influence, through misuse and abuse of taxpayer money, yet they get away with it.
Poverty is endemic, with the rich getting richer and the poor forever poor.
The middle class is a fast-vanishing breed, crushed by inflation defeating legitimate earnings with meager savings depleted by the need to survive.
It’s still the same old story — government Over-spending, Over-taxing, Over-borrowing and Over-stealing.
Except now, under Ferdinand II, the over-borrowing has reached cataclysmic heights, the over-spending too, but the over-stealing is Olympian in scale.
Yet, it is the people who always pay.
There were hopes that Cory with her international stature as the “darling” of democracy, could prevail against the gnomes of H Street in DC and Wall Street in NY, to write off some of the “legacy” indebtedness, but, Shylocks never change.
“Democracy pays no dividends,” Cory famously said.
We the people have kept paying. And on top of Ferdinand I’s legacy debt, succeeding leaders burdened us more, especially with a Congress of dynasts and celebrities whose hunger for “liempo” is never sated.
In the 19th Congress, what seemed tolerable because less greedy was brought to Olympian heights through budgetary manipulation from “leadership funds” which were built-in pork in collusion with the DBM which crafts the “president’s budget,” further multiplied by “’insertions” unprogrammed allocations through bicameral sleight-of-hand.
All these transpired under the watch, or better yet, non-watch of a popularly elected president whose trust levels have all but disappeared.
Shocked by the results of a mid-term senatorial derby where his “llamado” all-star Alyansa ng Bagong Luma team was humiliated, he is “transforming” himself with coaching from an American “strategist,” first through “Mahiya naman kayo” followed by pre-arranged, media-covered inspection trips and “town-hall” consultation-kuno events while his Cabinet attributed everything they do to “Utos ni Pangulo.”
Leadership changes in the HoR and the “once-august” chamber have not inspired. A spokeswoman full of braggadocio and prevaricated claims delivered combatively has only gained scorn for the boss.
Five press secretaries in three years have failed to stem the tide of public disapproval of one who his predecessor Duterte once described as a “spoiled rich kid” bereft of “malasakit.”
The debt has reached almost 18 trillion, even without a pandemic-induced lockdown. The annual budget has reached over-spending limits, and for what?
The gnomes suggest new taxes, but how can Congress exact these from an angry public, where people have realized they always pay, yet get nothing?
