Corruption is our enemy, not taxes.
Eradicating corruption in the government is ideal and the goal of every administration. It prevents wastage of public funds.
But eliminating corruption that leads to an efficient bureaucracy does not justify the need to reduce taxes. It is an absurd argument. Corruption is our enemy, not taxes.
The flood control controversy has uncovered how billions of public funds have been plundered by corrupt lawmakers and government officials. The public outrage is understandable, and calls for the outright imprisonment of the guilty persons are justified.
The fury, however, is taking a wrong turn. Some now argue that the government should cut the value-added tax (VAT) from 12 percent to 10 percent, or that if corruption were eradicated, people wouldn’t need to pay so much in taxes at all.
Even if not a single centavo were lost to corruption, our national budget would still not be enough to fund government services at the level our people deserve and need.
Revenue or tax collections have never been enough to fund the government’s annual expenditures. We have an expanding economy and a growing population that, in turn, requires more social services ranging from education and healthcare to housing. The government borrows from domestic and foreign sources to bridge the gap.
Allocating funds for every sector is also not an easy job. Lawmakers every year are forced to make compromises. The crafting of the annual budget is a delicate balancing act because of limited funding sources.
The Department of Education clamors for more classrooms and higher pay for teachers, while the Department of Health wants more hospitals, well-equipped health centers, and nurses.
Filipinos deserve better roads and transport systems as well, but the government also wants to strengthen our defense against foreign aggression in the West Philippine Sea.
The Department of Finance (DOF) relies on tax collections to fund the annual budget and priority sectors, with the hope of expanding the economy and generating new jobs.
Taxes are not the enemy—they are the lifeblood of a functioning society. They pay for the classrooms where our children get education, the hospitals that save lives and the soldiers who protect our seas. Without taxes, there can be no government, no services, no future.
Finance Secretary Ralph Recto should not be vilified for doing his job. He is tasked to manage the nation’s finances prudently and ensure that every peso collected works for the people.
He warns that lowering the VAT rate “may lead to massive revenue losses, resulting in less public services, and may force the government to borrow even for basic operations, such as personnel salaries.”
The P576 billion in total excise tax collections would also not be enough to fund the combined P965-billion budget for basic, tertiary and technical-vocational education programs.
The DOF and its attached agencies collected a record P4.42 trillion in revenues in 2024. The figure supported the government’s P5.925-trillion expenditure, which is equivalent to 16.7 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), the highest in 27 years.
The DOF collected roughly P12.10 billion a day in 2024 to support the P16.23-billion daily expenditures of the government.
The revenues funded, among other things, education for 24.54 million public school students and medical assistance to about 6.4 million patients in public hospitals, and supported P871.38 billion in local government funding.
Revenue collections have grown by double digits over the past three years, averaging 13.8 percent annually, largely due to enhanced tax administration efforts by the Bureau of International Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC) through digitalization and stricter enforcement.
With higher government revenue collections and improved expenditure management, the fiscal deficit dropped from the pandemic high of 8.6 percent of the GDP in 2021 to 5.5 percent in 2025. It is projected to drop to about 4 percent by 2028 and around 3 percent by 2030.
Recto believes that if the government adheres to its refined fiscal program and maintains disciplined and efficient spending, the size of the Philippine economy will reach P42.6 trillion by 2030, with debt kept at P24.7 trillion, or equivalent to 58 percent of GDP.
The problem, thus, isn’t the taxes we pay—it’s the corruption that needlessly drains them. The real enemies are those who plunder public funds and betray the trust of the Filipino people.
E-mail: rayenano@yahoo.com or extrastory2000@gmail.com
