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Teachers to Senate: Pass bill exempting ‘meager’ poll service honoraria from 20% tax

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) urged the Senate to pass the tax exemption bill for the teachers’ election service pay before the 18th Congress ends.

As Congress resumed sessions to canvass election results for the presidential and vice presidential posts Monday, May 23, ACT said the Senate must thank teachers by scrapping the 20% tax on election service pay and refund previous tax collections on the same.

The group urged Senate President Vicente Sotto to lead the push to ensure its legislation before sessions end on June 3, 2022.

“Our election workers cannot wholly feel the state’s recognition of their vital role in the past elections as hefty tax deductions practically eroded the measly raise on election service pay,” ACT said in a statement.

The group added it is urgent for the Senate to fast-track the legislation that will exempt all previous and future election service pay from taxes.

The House of Representatives has already approved the proposal in August 2021 but has only reached committee level discussions in the Senate, ACT pointed out.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Resolution No. 10727 in November 10, 2021 set an honoraria of P7,000 for chairpersons of the election board (EB), P6,000 to the members of the EB, P5,000 to the Department of Education supervisor official (DESO), and P3,000 for support staff and medical personnel.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue however said that a 20% tax must be levied on these in accordance with the Tax Revenue for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) law.

The Comelec has since expressed support to ACT’s calls in a Senate Committee on Ways and Means hearing.

“Our poll workers yet again delivered exemplary service despite last election’s dirty politicking and the un-transparent automated elections system. Our teachers were subjected to harsh conditions and unnecessary hardships, but they fulfilled their duties and went above and beyond to protect the sanctity of our people’s votes,” ACT said.

“The integrity of this elections may be deemed questionable, but not the integrity of our teacher-poll workers. They deserve to be fully remunerated for their service, without burdensome tax deductions,” the group added. # (Raymund B Villanueva)

Colmenares urges repeal of VAT and excise tax on fuel to lower prices

Senatorial candidate Neri Colmenares presented five proposals to mitigate effects of rising oil prices he blames not just on the crisis in Eastern Europe but on government’s high taxes on petroleum products.

Colmenares, chairperson of the Makabayan block of progressive parties, said they have long proposed the five measures in response to the oil crisis that are likely to very soon affect prices of essential goods as well.

Colmenares said the first proposal is for the immediate repeal of the value added tax (VAT) and excise tax imposed on fuel that would result to an average relief of P27 per liter.

“We have done away with the VAT on water supplied by Manila Water and Maynilad; we must follow suit with fuel,” he said.

The second proposal is to unbundle oil prices, Colmenares said, that would provide for transparency in the pricing of petroleum products by the oil companies.

“By seeing where every peso spent per litter goes, we can easily check for overpricing and market abuse. This proposal is contained in House Bill No. 10386,” he added.

The senatorial candidate said the next three proposals are:

• The repeal of the Oil Deregulation Law and enactment of a new policy framework to ensure that oil prices are within reasonable costs and regulated, as contained in House Bill No. 4711;

• The buy-back of Petron to provide the public with a state-owned alternative to acquire oil and petroleum products, as contained in House Bill No. 244. Ramon Ang has already expressed willingness to sell Petron; thus, the Government must take on this offer and seek a just take-over of the company;

• The establishment of a National Petroleum Exchange Corporation to serve as the central import and distribution hub of oil and petroleum products, ensuring lower prices through economies of scale and helping oversee oil prices in the market, as contained in House Bill No. 4712.

Colmenares’ proposals came after prices increased for the 10th straight week last Tuesday by at least P3 per liter on gasoline and nearly P6 per liter on diesel, bringing prices to about P80 and P60 per liter, respectively.

The recent hikes in oil prices are the highest in more than a decade, pushing transport groups to hold protest rallies calling on the government to stop the increases.

Earlier, energy secretary Alfonso Cusi warned that gasoline prices may reach to about P100 per liter if the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation is not immediately resolved.

Colmenares said the Philippine government does not have its hands tied in dealing with rising fuel costs and must act with urgency to cushion the country from the crisis.

“We can overcome this crisis if the government would stop imposing burdensome taxes and implement enough regulation on the oil industry,” Colmenares said Filipino.

No reason to hike prices yet

Meanwhile, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) said in a separate statement that oil companies have no reason to increase prices as a result of the conflict in Eastern Europe.

“The current automatic price adjustments under deregulation are unjust because these are driven by market speculation and because the current inventory of the big oil companies were purchased at a much lower price yet will be sold at a much higher price,” BAYAN secretary general Renato Reyes said.

Reyes also criticizd the refusal of the oil companies to make a full disclosure of their pricing mechanisms.

“The pricing by the oil cartel is untransparent because oil companies refuse to unbundle the price components of their products,” he said.

Reyes added is is unjust that government profits from the people’s misery brought about by high taxes on the already overpriced oil products, including a 12% VAT and excise taxes.

Reyes said that BAYAN’s demands the removal or suspension on huge taxes on oil products such as the excise tax and VAT as well as the imposition of strict regulations on the industry “in light of market speculation, overpricing and utter lack of transparency in pricing.”

“The people can no longer bear the oppression by government and the oil companies. The government should act now to lower oil prices or face more protests from the people,” he said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Why make the poor pay for COVID-19 response?

By Sonny Africa

There’s more than enough money for all the COVID-19 response we need – the Duterte administration just has to take the side of the people and stop being so scared of the rich.

The Philippines is in the middle of its worst public health and economic crisis in decades, possibly even in its history. The social, economic and health measures needed to deal with this are undoubtedly expensive. But are they unaffordable?

Hangin

The government seems to think so. The president famously said that the government does not have enough money to respond – “hangin lang iyan,” he lamented.

The rest of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases haven’t been as blunt but they’ve been acting that way. The social welfare department has, in effect, been rationing already stingy cash aid with unduly strict requirements. The health department isn’t testing, tracing, isolating and treating as much people as they should for want of resources.

The finance department is at the helm of the government’s economic team. It is voting with its feet – its Philippine Program for Recovery with Equity and Solidarity (PH-PROGRESO) and stimulus plans don’t give income support for tens of millions of cash-strapped families beyond the lockdown.

Unfortunately, strangely affirming the importance Karl Marx gives to the economic base of society, the economic managers are too decisive. The finance department is also in charge of revenue generation. If it says there isn’t any money, then the rest of government won’t have any money. Which explains where the president’s hangin comment came from.

But is there really no money to be had?

The plan

But before looking into that, a more basic question – how much does the government really need? Four months into the pandemic, it’s still not actually very clear. PH-PROGRESO is presumably the national government’s plan but this doesn’t include what must also be considerable efforts at the local government level.

The four-pillar PH-PROGRESO also has to be interpreted carefully because the finance department adds up actual spending, loans and guarantees, foregone revenue, financing, and additional liquidity to come up with an impressive looking grand total of Php1.74 trillion.

As it is, it looks like there’s only Php506 billion in actual spending. This includes Php321.6 billion in emergency support, Php133.7 billion in loan and credit guarantees, and Php50.7 billion for health measures.

The balance of Php1.24 trillion is actually composed of tax cuts and other foregone revenues (Php142.8 billion), liquidity released into the system by central bank measures (Php233 billion), and financing mostly from new debt (Php861.8 billion). Put another way, the government doesn’t actually need to raise funds for all these items accounting for 71% of the ‘grand’ total.

So where to get that Php506 billion that will actually be spent?

The Php861.8 billion in new financing of PH-PROGRESO – Php436.9 billion from official development assistance (ODA) and Php419.4 billion from government bonds – is presumably a source.

But the program also mentions up to Php673 billion freed up from existing budget items and so not really needing new financing or revenue sources. This is from the 2019 and 2020 national budgets, off-budget items from government-owned and controlled corporations and government financial institutions, and private sector contributions as well as from “financial sector, monetary policy, regulatory relief”. In his last weekly report to Congress, the president cited raising Php257 billion already from discontinued, abandoned, reprogrammed, reallocated and realigned items in the 2019 and 2020 budgets.

Looked at in this way, it appears that the government has come up with a reasonably prudent plan.

Poor pay for meager response

But appearances can be deceiving. There are two problems here.

The first is that the planned Php506 billion in actual spending falls far short of being a sufficient response. The COVID-19 response needs to be much more comprehensive and ambitious. The combined cost of the range of health measures, emergency relief, income support, and enterprise support needed is likely more in the order of Php1.5-2 trillion.

Clearly, the perceived lack of funds is a major binding constraint to the broader response that is really needed and, indeed, even just a larger COVID-19 response than at present. This self-imposed limitation gravely undermines the public health response, risks undue infections and deaths, and will mean socioeconomic difficulties on a massive scale.

Which leads to the second problem. Meager as the response is, the poor are paying for it more than they should – through debt and higher taxes – while the rich are paying much less than they can.

Most of the Php861.8 billion in financing of PH-PROGRESO is actually new and additional debt that will be paid for from taxes. Only a tiny Php404 million of this financing are grants and the rest are ODA loans and government bonds. The government has already been reported as seeking US$5.7 billion in foreign loans for its COVID-19 response. To date, the finance department reports US$4.9 billion in COVID-related foreign debt.

The taxes to pay for this debt are disproportionately borne by the poor with their low incomes. Especially after the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Package 1 of 2017, the country’s tax system is more regressive and consumption tax-oriented than it has ever been.

The self-imposed debt trap even to so-called development agencies and friendly governments is glaring. The Duterte administration is programmed to pay US$1.7 billion in debt service to multilateral and bilateral agencies – especially the World Bank and Asian Development Bank – this year. These are also the very agencies it has borrowed an additional US$2.5 billion from to respond to COVID-19.

Taxing consumption

The government is also quick to tax consumption including of the poor. Consumption taxes are inherently regressive in being paid the same by everyone regardless of how poor or rich they are – as opposed to direct taxation of income and wealth which is more progressive.

The administration has already hiked tariffs on imported oil products by 10% to raise funds for dealing with the pandemic. The planning agency, headed by a former finance department official, is already proposing higher consumption taxes that will add to the burden of poor and middle class families.

This includes a digital economy value-added tax proposal which adds a Php50 billion tax burden on online consumers over 2021-2023, higher taxes on sweetened drinks and junk food adding a Php22.7 billion burden, and a higher Motor Vehicle Road Users’ Tax adding a Php40 billion burden.

Increasing taxes on low-income families amid a recession would be perplexing if the insensitivity of the Duterte administration and its economic managers when it comes to taxes were not already well-established. They are only being hugely opportunistic in exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to push their long-standing TRAIN agenda of raising consumption taxes on poor and low-income groups while reducing taxes on the rich.

It’s all a bizarre repeat of TRAIN where the poor are made to pay more so the rich can pay less. This time around, amid the COVID-19 crisis, the rich will benefit from the biggest corporate tax break in Philippine history.

TRAIN Package 2, comically renamed Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-Quality Opportunities (TRABAHO) bill, soberly renamed the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Reform Act (CITIRA), and now opportunistically renamed the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE), is being primed for rapid legislative passage. The Duterte administration is giving up Php667 billion in potential COVID-19 response funds to boost corporate profits.

Tax the rich

So where can funds for the comprehensive COVID-19 response needed come from? From the very same sources that funding for national development should come from – the accumulated wealth and income of the rich.

The pandemic has seen the ideas of solidarity, unity and compassion raised repeatedly. Beyond spontaneous acts of charity, paying higher taxes is putting money where your mouth is.

In our population of 108 million, an estimated 596 Filipinos each have wealth of some Php2.5 billion pesos or more. This includes the 50 richest Filipinos whose combined wealth of around Php4.1 trillion is, by IBON’s estimates, more than what the poorest 71 million Filipinos own combined.

There’s no reasonable argument that taxing their wealth above Php1 billion will adversely affect their well-being and welfare. A wealth tax of 1% on wealth above Php1 billion, another 2% above Php2 billion, and another 3% above Php3 billion will raise Php236.7 billion annually from these 50 richest alone. They are not going to be spending this anyway versus the huge social, economic and health returns from using this for COVID-19 response.

Other tax measures can also be considered. A two-tiered corporate income tax scheme with higher taxes on large firms and lower taxes on micro, small and medium enterprises can be designed to generate about Php70 billion annually. Similarly, a personal income tax scheme with higher taxes on just the richest 2.5% of Filipino families can raise about Php127 billion annually.

These are illustrative figures for now but the Duterte administration can come up with more precise figures if it was so inclined. There are technical challenges but these are not insurmountable and no reason not to try.

A wealth tax, higher taxes on large corporations, and higher taxes on the richest Filipinos are the most rational sources of revenues for COVID-19 response and development.

Does Congress have the political will for these? Sadly, our senators and representatives, looking to the 2022 elections already, are the biggest political won’t. #

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Kodao publishes IBON articles as part of a content-sharing agreement.

POGOs not an essential sector, only 0.23% of gov’t annual tax revenues

by IBON Media & Communications

Research group IBON said the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) generate minimal income and employment for the country, contrary to government’s claim that it is an essential sector and should be partially reopened.

The group said that the insistence on reopening POGOs appears to be yet another example of partiality towards China.

The public interest is better served by giving more attention to public health measures for when the lockdown is lifted, stressed IBON.

The administration recently announced that it will allow the partial reopening of POGOs while the lockdown is ongoing.

It claims that POGOs are categorized as business process outsourcing (BPO) which is an essential sector due to its revenue and employment generating capacity.

IBON however questioned the administration’s defense of POGOs as an essential sector.

It does not bring in much government income nor job opportunities for Filipinos, said the group.

According to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), it has collected only around Php6.4 billion from POGOs in 2019, which is not even one-fourth of one percent (0.23%) of the Php2.8 trillion in total tax revenues for the year. The government is not even able to collect the expected Php50 billion in taxes from offshore gaming operators.

Meanwhile, POGO regulatory fees averaging only Php3.8 billion annually in the last five years were a measly 1.5% of the annual average non-tax revenues over the same period.

Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation’s (PAGCOR) collects these fees, and POGOs only contributed 7.6% to its gross income of Php75.8 billion in 2019.

The bulk or 58.1% of PAGCOR’s earnings are from regulatory fees of licensed casinos and electronic gaming sites.

Some 34.1% of PAGCOR’s gross income is from its share of tables and electronic gaming machines.

POGOs also avoided paying franchise taxes, added the group.

A Senate hearing last March, the BIR said only 8 out of 11 POGOs pay the 5% Philippine franchise tax.

IBON also explained that POGOs contributed little to the country’s employment because they employ mostly Chinese citizens.

2020 data from PAGCOR show that more than half or 57.3% of the 188,239 POGO employees are Chinese citizens and 25% from other nationalities; only 17.7% are Filipinos.

PAGCOR has also been touting that POGOs had driven Php25 billion in real estate profits through office space leasing. Its own data however reveal that POGOs are mainly leasing office space in buildings owned by top Philippine oligarchs, noted IBON.

One example is PB Com Tower in Makati owned by Lucio Co. PB Com Tower is home to 31 POGOs and POGO service providers.

Additionally, the Yuchengco Tower in Makati is a leasing space for 16 POGO service providers. The Yuchengco Tower is owned by RCBC Realty Corporation, a subsidiary of RCBC.

It could be recalled that RCBC was put into controversy in 2019 due to its ex-bank manager being found guilty of money laundering in connection with the US$81 million cyber heist on Bangladesh’s central bank.

IBON found that in RCBC’s May 2019 disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), one of the banking corporation’s independent directors from 2016 to present, Gabriel Claudio, is also serving as a director at PAGCOR.

IBON said that if government is really sincere in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it should prioritize improving the country’s testing capacity and isolation of COVID-19 cases over reopening businesses such as POGOs.

The group added that improving the country’s health system would have avoided a longer lockdown.

Moreover, IBON said that if the government focused on productive sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing, the Philippine economy could jumpstart faster rather than depending on the piddling contribution of POGOs. #

Duterte administration being dishonest about economic ‘gains’

Research group IBON said that the Duterte administration is being dishonest in its recent pronouncements about high growth, reducing unemployment, and reducing poverty. The group said that the government is taking liberties with statistics as part of its propaganda campaign that President Duterte is keeping his promise of real change.

In its pre-State of the Nation Address (SONA) forum, the Department of Finance (DOF) hailed the Duterte administration for its achievements during its first three years in terms of “rapid economic expansion”, “the lowest [unemployment] in 40 years”, “alleviating poverty”, and Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law “benefiting 99 percent of taxpayers”.

According to IBON executive director Sonny Africa however, growth has actually been slowing since the start of the Duterte administration. Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data show that gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been slowing in the 11 quarters since the start of the Duterte administration from 7.1% in the third quarter of 2016 to 5.6% in the first quarter of 2019. There was a momentary increase to 7.2% in the third quarter of 2017 but growth fell rapidly after this. IBON also pointed out that the growth was slowing even before the budget impasse and election ban on infrastructure spending.

Africa added that the economic managers are being deceitful in claiming that the 5.1% unemployment rate in April 2019 is the lowest unemployment in four decades. He pointed out that the DOF is well aware that the change in the official definition of unemployment in 2005 drastically reduced the reported unemployment rate and number of unemployed which makes the April 2019 figure incomparable with the 25 years of data before 2005.

On the contrary, IBON said, computing according to the original definition of unemployment for comparability would show that the real unemployment rate in 2018 is 10.1% and the real number of unemployed is 4.6 million. These are much worse than the already high 9.0% unemployment rate and 4 million unemployed in 2016, again computed according to the original definition. In contrast, officially released figures for 2018 were a grossly underreported 5.3% and 2.3 million, respectively.

The high unemployment is a direct result of how only an annual average of 81,000 new jobs have been created since the start of the Duterte administration, from 41 million employed in 2016 to 41.2 million in 2018. This is the worst job generation in the post-Marcos period.

Poverty statistics meanwhile show seemingly less poor Filipinos only because of government’s very low poverty threshold, said Africa. The government’s Php69.50 daily per capita poverty threshold and only Php48.60 subsistence or food threshold in the first semester of 2018 are absurdly low and not conceivably enough to meet decent minimum standards for food, shelter, transportation, health care, and education, stressed Africa. He said that this leads to a gross underestimation of the real number of poor Filipinos.

Finally, Africa clarified that it is very deceitful to claim that TRAIN benefited 99% of taxpayers. The Duterte administration wants to make it appear that 99% of Filipinos benefited from TRAIN but the truth is that only 5.5 million personal income taxpayers with tax cuts out of 23 million Filipino families gain from TRAIN. The poorest 17.2 million or eight out of 10 Filipino families will pay TRAIN’s higher consumption taxes but without any personal income tax gains to offset these. The government is trying to distract the public from how a disproportionate part of TRAIN revenues come from the poorest majority of Filipinos due to additional levies on consumption goods including petroleum products and sugar-sweetened beverages, said Africa.

IBON warned the public to be more discerning about the government claims and not to take these at face value. Yet the country can only start to take steps to real solutions when there is more candor and honesty, rather than self-serving propaganda, about the real problems the economy and the people face. #

Sin taxes, UHC to fund privatization of health services–IBON

Research group IBON said that government must allot a higher budget for public health services rather than fund private health providers through the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act.

Also known as Republic Act (RA) 11223, the UHC Act ostensibly aims to provide all Filipinos with promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative health services “without causing financial hardship”, and prioritizes Filipinos who cannot afford such services.

The UHC would need Php257 billion in its first year of implementation.

The sin tax reform law on the other hand is allegedly intended to augment the funding gap of around Php62 billion in the first year alone.

But IBON observed that the UHC would use government funds to create supplementary coverage by private health care providers such as private health insurance and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) as well as provide network-based licensing, contracting, and accreditation of health facilities.

This further privatizes health services, the group said.

The UHC, IBON explained, stipulates that Filipinos would automatically be enrolled in PhilHealth or the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) either as a direct contributor who would pay premiums or as an indirect contributor.

Moreover, the NHIP would have an increase in membership rate by 0.5% annually to fund the UHC.

The group observed that this is not as socialized as it appears to be, as high-income individuals would contribute the same percentage of their salary as low-income earners.

Also, IBON noted, to ensure that basic accommodation services are met, UHC states that government hospitals would operate not less than 90% of their bed capacity as basic accommodation, not less than 70% for specialty hospitals, and not less than 10% for private hospitals.

However, IBON observed that hospital beds in the country are not enough to begin with.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 20 beds per 10,000 population.

The Philippines has never reached the recommended ratio, the group said, and this indicator even worsened from 14.4 beds per 10,000 population in 1990 to only 9.9 beds per population in 2014.

The number of government hospitals even fell from 732 in 2011 to 423 in 2015.

Moreover, said IBON, the UHC assures that a National Health Human Resource Master Plan would be formulated to ensure the provision of health programs and services through a guaranteed permanent employment and competitive salary of all health professionals and health care workers.

Yet for every 10,000 population the country had only 0.3 government physician and 0.6 public health nurse in 2017.

Despite the scarcity of government health workers, data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) show that the country has been exporting nurses for decades, which is worsening the brain drain of the health sector, observed IBON.

The Philippines deployed 19,551 nurses in 2016 or 53 nurses per day.

IBON emphasized that the UHC is the continuation of the privatization and commercialization of health services of previous administrations, from the Health Sector Reform Agenda of the Estrada administration, Fourmula One for Health of the Arroyo administration, and Aquino’s own UHC agenda.

These programs advance less government and more private role in healthcare, making provision of health services less direct and more insurance-driven thus prioritizing private profits over public health, said IBON

2018 Yearender: Are You High? The Economy Isn’t

by Sonny Africa

Executive Director, IBON Foundation

The Duterte administration’s economic managers made some odd statements as the year wound up. Economic planning secretary Ernesto Pernia said “the Philippine economy became stronger and even more resilient than ever”. Finance secretary Carlos Dominguez III insisted on “the soundness of the Duterte administration’s economic development strategy”. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor Nestor Espenilla meanwhile said that they “expect growth to remain solid in the years ahead”.

These are odd because the economy clearly showed signs of increasing stress in 2018. If anything, the year just passed confirmed the end of the long period of relatively rapid growth for the Philippines.

In denial

Growth has been slowing since the start of the Duterte administration. It is already its slowest in three years. Inflation reached a nine year-high and was even worse for the poorest Filipinos. The current account deficit is at its worst in 18 years. The peso is at its weakest in 13 years. International reserves are in their lowest in 10 years. The jobs crisis is disguised but really at a historic high. Overseas remittances are also slowing — this further dampens household consumption and welfare.

The government seems to think that it can just spend its way out of this. It holds its ‘Build Build Build’ infrastructure offensive as some kind of magic bullet. This will be difficult with the end of the decade of low global and local interest rates and rising borrowing costs. Accelerating government debt will also only become more unmanageable as growth continues to slow. As it is, the budget deficit is already at its worst in seven years.

All these the government’s chief economic propagandists will euphemistically call ‘headwinds’ or ‘challenges’. Yet barring a real change of economic course, there is little reason to expect that the economy will get better anytime soon. Elite business profits will likely continue to grow, but it may just be a matter of time before even these suffer.

As if being near the top of a sinking ship is a good thing, the administration will keep on claiming that the Philippines is among the fastest growing economies in the region and in the world that is caught in a protracted crisis, Still, the 6.3% growth in the first three quarters of 2018 is markedly slower than the 6.7% growth on 2017 and 6.9% in 2016.

Deteriorating

Agriculture is doing particularly badly: its 0.4% growth in the first three quarters of 2018 is approaching its worst performance since 2016. But even the hyped manufacturing resurgence is hitting a wall – the 5.7% growth in the first three quarters is much slower its 8.4% clip in 2017, and the full year results may be the slowest since 2015.

Filipino industry and domestic agriculture would have been solid foundations of domestic demand and production, if only these had really been developed these past years. This is impossible though under the government’s obsolete globalization and free trade mantra. Agriculture is still left to the vagaries of the weather and small peasant labor. Manufacturing remains shallow and foreign-dominated.

The services sector never should have been the driver of economic growth. But even this is failing. The real estate boom appears to be ending with 5.9% growth of finance and real estate in the first three quarters of 2018 continuing the trend of slowing growth from 7.5% in 2017 and 8.5% in 2016. Reflecting weakening household consumption, even trade is down – at just 6.0% in the first three quarters compared to 7.3% in 2017 and 7.6% in 2018.

The main drivers of growth in 2018 have been the intrinsically short-term boost from government spending – this increased to 13.1% growth in the first three quarters from just 7.0% in 2017. , Construction also increased to 13.3% growth in the first three quarters from just 5.3% in 2017.

Real score on jobs twisted

The worst effect of a backward economy is not creating enough decent work for the growing population.

The economic managers hailed 825,000 new jobs created in 2018 and unemployment falling by 140,000 bringing the unemployment rate down to 5.3 percent. Unfortunately, these do not tell the whole story.

The Duterte administration has actually created just an average of 81,000 jobs annually with 43.5 million jobs in 2018 compared to 43.4 million in 2016. This is because the economy lost a huge 663,000 jobs in 2017, which was the biggest contraction in employment in 20 years or since 1997.

So the largest part of the supposed job creation, or some four out of five ‘new’ jobs, was really just restoring jobs lost in 2017.

But how to explain the falling unemployment? This is a statistical quirk. According to the official methodology, jobless Filipinos have to be counted as in the labor force to be counted as unemployed.

It seems that huge numbers of Filipinos are no longer seeking work and dropping out of the labor force. This is reflected in how the labor force participation rate dropped to 60.9% in 2018 which is the lowest in 38 years or since 1980.

While employment grew by just 162,000 between 2016 and 2018, the number of workers not in the labor force grew by a huge 2.9 million over that same period. It is likely that the reported 62,000 fall in the number of unemployed between 2016 and 2018 reflects workers dropping out of the labor force because of tight labor markets rather than their finding new work (because of weak job creation).

This scenario is supported by IBON’s estimates of the real state of unemployment in the country. The government started underestimating unemployment in 2005 when it adopted a stricter definition that made subsequent estimates incomparable with previous figures.

Reverting to the previous definition to give a better idea if the employment situation really is improving or not, IBON estimates that the real unemployment rate in the decade 2008-2017 is some 10.2 percent. This maintains high unemployment in the economy since the onset of globalization policies in the 1980s. IBON does not yet have estimates for 2018, but the real number of unemployed in 2017 was 4.6 million or almost double the officially underreported estimate of just 2.4 million.

Job generation trends in 2018 are in any case worrisome as it is. The quarterly labor force survey showed drastically worsening job generation since the start of the year. Measured year-on-year, some 2.4 million jobs were reported created in January 2018 but this fell to 625,000 in April then 488,000 in July and then 218,000 jobs actually lost, rather than created, in October.

Economy needing rehab

Perhaps high on their own propaganda, the country’s neoliberal economic managers continue to confuse abstract growth figures, business profits and foreign investment with development and the conditions of the people. The reality however is of chronically backward Filipino industry and agriculture and an economy that went sideways in 2018. The real challenge is to discard failed neoliberalism and to replace this with an economics truly serving the people.#

Anti-tyranny group assesses Duterte’s laws and bills

Days before President Rodrigo Duterte’s third State of the Nation Address on July 23, the Movement Against Tyranny gathered in Quezon City to assess the government economic policies and Congressional bills.

Economic experts, legislators and legal luminaries presented before the forum their assessment of Duterte’s tax reform law as well as efforts to amend both the Human Security Law and the Constitution.

TRAIN-driven rising cost of living makes wage hike urgent

Research group IBON said that tax-driven inflation is making the meager wages of poor Filipinos fall even further behind the rising cost of living.

The group said this makes it even more urgent for the government to immediately raise wages even as it revisits the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law behind the increase in consumption taxes.

The Duterte administration would be insensitive if it continues to resist the clamor for a decent national minimum wage, the group added.

IBON said that accelerating inflation has increased the family living wage (FLW) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and elsewhere.

IBON computations show that as of June 2018, a family of six needs Php1,175 to meet their basic needs, while a family of five needs Php979.

The FLW has increased by Php65 for a family of six and by Php54 for a family of five in June 2018 from the same period last year.

As it is, said the group, the NCR nominal minimum wage of Php512 is falling even further behind the rising cost of living.

The NCR nominal wage is only 44 percent of the FLW for a family of six, and 52% of the FLW for a family of five with a wage gap of Php663 (56 percent) and Php467 (48 percent), respectively.

The wage gap will continue to widen as inflation erodes the minimum wage.

Reacting to economic planning secretary Ernesto Pernia who said that a wage hike is not necessary, the group said that an immediate wage hike will help poor Filipinos cope with price spikes.

The Duterte administration can respond to the demand of labor groups for a Php750 national minimum wage.

IBON stressed that there are enough profits in the economy and among corporations to support the substantial increase in the minimum wage needed by workers and their families.

IBON also belied claims by the country’s economic managers in their joint statement on the June 2018 inflation that TRAIN’s reduction of personal income taxes, cash transfers, and allocation for free social and economic services “should help in coping with the rising prices of goods.”

The group said that their assertion that TRAIN “increased the take-home pay of 99 percent of income tax payers” is grossly deceitful because they know that only around 7.5 million or one-third (33 percent) of Filipino families are income tax payers.

Of these, some two million were already exempt from paying income tax even before TRAIN because they were only minimum wage earners.

This means that 17.2 million or over three-fourths (76 percent) of Filipino families suffer inflation but without any increased take-home pay.

IBON also said that the government should stop hyping TRAIN’s cash transfers because when they are ended by 2020 the higher prices of goods and services due to TRAIN will remain.

The group said that the Duterte administration’s unrepentant defense of TRAIN is daily affirmation of its callousness to the plight of tens of millions of poor Filipinos and its refusal to replace TRAIN with a more genuinely progressive tax package that is unafraid to tax the rich. #

 

Citizens speak against TRAIN law

Ordinary citizens speak on the Rodrigo Duterte’s Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law, explaining the poor are affected the most by the inflation caused by the measure.

TRAIN was among the issues condemned by activists as they commemorated Philippine Independence Day with a protest action last June 12.