Note: The tactic of Noynoy’s speech writer is to bury people under irrelevant details and rhetoric – and bore them to death so that their brains stop thinking. This reply cuts through the fluff and zeroes in on the core assertions of the Aquino de facto government. In writing this reply, I painfully read each paragraph and wrote my thoughts on the matter. I hope you will all find this useful as we articulate, dissect, and disambiguate the yellow haze. This is the first part 1 of a rebuttal to Noynoy’s non-speech.
It is one thing to look into the past to understand why we are where we are today. It is another thing to define the direction one wants to go given the past experiences and present circumstances.
As it was in the past, as it is today – it is still an absurdity to dream – when a mindless bureaucracy has gotten bigger; padded contracts are still the norm; the personal economy of the common Filipino remains weak; investors have been moving out of the Philippines; joblessness has not budged – and Filipinos still have to go overseas to get a decent paying job – because the economy protects cronies profit margins at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. Filipinos remain deprived and hopeless. It has gotten worse – as the executive and legislative branches have colluded to weave a monumental scam.
The Philippines has sunk deeper into despair because the self-proclaimed anti-corrupt, the “lesser evil”, turns out to be the BIGGEST LIAR and has indulged in an epic malversation of public funds
Today, more and more Filipinos are experiencing voter’s remorse because the so called straight and righteous path was actually a crooked and twisted path leading to HELL.
Aquino is not the father of the nation. This paternalistic hubris has got to stop. Noynoy Aquino is an EMPLOYEE of the Filipino people, who was hired to do a job – a job which he was never prepared for. Nobody said it was an easy job. Saying you are just human is not unaccetable – a cop out because there are other human beings who stepped up to the challenges of the job – like Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew.
It is very clear that the de facto government has failed to serve the Filipino people and have instead chosen to help themselves to tax money, awarding projects to their cronies, and in some instances pocketing the money themselves.
“When you give man a fish, you don’t just feed him for a day – you also get yourself elected”.
The TESDA is a palliative.
The better solution is to open the economy so that investors in technical education can provide courses which are attuned to the economy – and so that investors can employ more Filipinos. The outcome of such a solution will be a magnitude.
Entitlements: Corrupting the Filipino People
With an open economy, government need not allocate – nor collect taxes – in order to fund a TESDA. Market forces will invest in technical education, market forces will hire the graduates – all without touching taxes nor coming up with convoluted accounting.
The Expanded Conditional Cash Transfer Program is another major tax wasting fraud-laden program. In fact it is an open secret that CCT recipients end up spending the money in non-essentials like booze and gambling.
The CCT is often cited as a supplement to education. The better alternative is to open the economy and allow more foreign investments. When fully opened, the aggregate private investments will be more than 12.3 billion pesos – with nary tax money spent, no government officials awarding the money dubiously, and without taxing the already taxed to death Filipino taxpayer.
Redefining Poverty
The reduction in poverty claimed by Noynoy has a lot to do with the redefinition of poverty. By using a lower standard Noynoy can claim that poverty was reduced.
Recall when Balisacan, who is also director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), was pushing for the use of the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) as “an extremely useful complement to income poverty based on, say, US$1.25 per person per day poverty line.”
In pushing for the MPI, Balisacan cited the Philippine experience, wherein poverty data has defied government efforts — such as the conditional cash transfer program — to improve the lives of the poor.
Despite the country’s above-target economic growth, the number of poor Filipinos hardly changed at a fourth of the population, he said.
But if a more inclusive definition of poverty was used — as was done in a 2011 study — economic growth however has led to the reduction in extreme forms of poverty, Balisacan said.
In plain and simple terms, poverty reduced because Noynoy used a definition with lower standards under the guise of “inclusiveness”.
Noynoy has also made grand beggary acceptable. Expect people like Marc Escora and Jonalyn Navarossa to be in the ranks of people who will justify plunder – because it did good things to them – without taking into consideration the poor fella who had to part with his income when government withheld his money. The poor pinoy whose wallet was plundered now has less money to send his children to school – so that Noynoy can feel good with Marc and Jonalyn – never mind the greater number of children whose prospects were negatively affected by the “free lunch” program.
The Expanded Conditional Cash Transfer Program is another major tax wasting program. The better alternative is to open the economy and allow more foreign investments in education. When fully opened, the aggregate private investments will be more than 12.3 billion pesos – with nary tax money spent, no government officials awarding the money dubiously, and without taxing the already taxed to death Filipino taxpayer.
The reduction in poverty claimed by Noynoy has a lot to do with the redefinition of poverty. By using a lower standard Noynoy can claim that poverty was reduced.
Recall when Balisacan, who is also director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), was pushing for the use of the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) as “”an extremely useful complement to income poverty based on, say, US$1.25 per person per day poverty line.””
In pushing for the MPI, Balisacan cited the Philippine experience, wherein poverty data has defied government efforts — such as the conditional cash transfer program — to improve the lives of the poor.
Despite the country’s above-target economic growth, the number of poor Filipinos hardly changed at a fourth of the population, he said.
But if a more inclusive definition of poverty was used — as was done in a 2011 study — economic growth however has led to the reduction in extreme forms of poverty, Balisacan said.
In plain and simple terms, poverty reduced because Noynoy used a definition with lower standards under the guise of “”inclusiveness””.”
The poor has been a very convenient excuse for government’s, well, plundering the poor some more – or even expanding poverty.
During Aquino’s time, the poor have been reduced to eating pagpag, eating lesser number of meals in a day, and at times even foregoing food. As Aquino’s misguided policies are implemented – more and more people are being plunged to poverty – because they were taxed some more in order for Aquino to have his tools.
What am saying is, believing that the Aquino government (or any government for that matter) will help the poor is like saying dynamite helps construct buildings.
The Sin Tax SCAM
In citing the Sin Tax reform, we ought to be reminded that it was supposedly a measure to reduce vice in society. What then are the outcomes?
A consumer study conducted by AC Nielsen shows that smoking prevalence dropped from 52 percent to 46 percent for smokers aged 20 to 44 years old for the first half of 2013. However, this does not show if prevalence has dropped for smokers aged 44 years old and above. Anecdotal evidence shows that long time smokers simply shifted consumption from high priced brands to lower priced brands.
BIR data also showed a reduction in the volumes withdrawn from plants for tobacco and fermented alcohol products from January to November 2013 by 16.97 percent and 12.18 percent, respectively. Withdrawn volume for distilled drinks, however, increased by 26.04 percent.
In another study, a non-government lobby today admitted that earlier estimates of the reduction in cigarette use arising from higher tax rates were “”overstated.””
In a press release, the Action for Economic Reforms (AER) said a poll it conducted in the fourth quarter of 2012 showed that respondents would cut back on smoking at a lower rate than what previous studies had forecast.
“We have found that the previous estimates on reduction of smoking consumption arising from the higher tax rates are most likely overstated,”” said Jo-ann Latuja, AER senior economist.
“”Our report demonstrates that a 10 percent increase in the prices of cigarettes would bring smokers in the city to decrease consumption by 2.84 percent,” she said, adding that this was lower than the Department of Finance’s (DOF) earlier estimate of a 5.8 percent drop in tobacco use.
Advocates recommend raising the sin tax even further. The impact of such a measure is quite well known in another agricultural product – rice. When products become too expensive due to government taxation, expect a rise in smuggling.
(to be continued)
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