High taxes won’t stop vices — Enrile

By Macon Ramos-Araneta | Posted on September 3,  2012 (Monday)

 

The young and the old. An elderly woman takes a drag on a cigarette while the child inhales passive smoke. Danny Pata

 

SENATE President Juan Ponce Enrile said on Sunday imposing high taxes on “sin products” will not stop people from smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol and their growing demand would attract smugglers.

He said he does not dispute the ill effects on the health of smoking and drinking, but increasing the prices of “sin products” will not prevent people from getting into vices.

 

The demand for cigarettes will stay, and this demand will be supplied by smugglers,” Enrile said in a radio interview.

 

The House of Representatives has approved a bill imposing a 708 percent tax increase on low-priced cigarettes, or those costing P11.50 per pack, which accounts for 60 percent of the market.

 

The Senate is discussing its own counterpart version. It’s still unclear whether they can end deliberations on the bill before they go on break for the Christmas holidays.

 

Health advocates said higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol will discourage people, especially the youths, from getting into the smoking habit, which is one of the causes of non-communicable diseases.

 

Enrile said more than two million tobacco farmers and workers will be affected and other sectors such as supermarket owners were alarmed at the dire impact on their business.

 

Steven Cua, president of the Philippine Amalgamated Supermarkets Association, said the multiplier effect of high cigarette prices will be increased production costs in the wholesale and retail industries, where tobacco products are considered as “traffic goods.”

 

He said inflation would be higher because cigarette manufacturers will pass on the tax hikes to customers and, because low-grade cigarettes have the same tax as high-grade cigarettes, the price will be beyond the reach of low-income consumers.

 

“A higher inflation rate would potentially imperil the country’s competitiveness, hamper the growth of exports and even jeopardize the country’s standing with rating agencies,” Cua said.

 

Enrile said the government intention to use for health purposes the income it would earn from sin products would not happen because the government would need the money to stop the smugglers.

 

“The high taxes will go to securing our coasts and our borders. So what then would go to health?” Enrile said.

 

“Let us allow what they want—the high taxes. That would still be in another four years. You will see they will regret it with the different kinds of cigarettes flooding the local markets that will be smuggled into the country,” he said. (END)

MISSING THE ‘HAUNTED HOUSE’

BY:  Macon Ramos-Araneta

            When  Nanay got sick, we left our family home in Lucena City for Manila. Checking  on it once in a while, we would nail the windows and the doors after every short visit.

            That was how the telltale about our sweet home being a haunted house began. Our neighbours tell of several occasions, they hear footsteps and unusual sounds coming from our house. Believing that there were indeed ghosts in our house, neighbourhood kids would swiftly run when they pass by.

            “Kawawa naman ang bahay naming, kinatatakutan,” my youngest sister Angie even commented when we last visited the place.

            But we can all attest to the fact that the deads—our deads, at least—do return. We have experienced how Papa and my sister Dona return and stay in our home on several instances. The most terrifying was the one on November 27, 1982.

            After watching Rod Stewart’s concert on TV, my sister Ody and I decided to sleep in the sala. Before retiring on the mat, I turned on the radio. But around 1:30 a.m., I was roused and unawarely turned it off, only to hear the water overflowing from the pail inside the bathroom.

            It was followed by several footsteps, which we all knew belonged to our Papa. Before his death, Papa had been dragging his left foot when walking due to stroke. He later succumbed to a heart failure.

            Moments later, I heard a chair being pulled and somebody sat on it. I believed it was Papa.

            When he was still alive, Papa would pull a chair in the kitchen and sit to dry his feet with a piece of cloth.

            Scared, I was about to run when Ody grabbed my panjamas and told me that Papa was there. All the while, I thought she was very much asleep as she was not moving. But Ody averred that she heard everything.

            Trembling, we lifted the mosquito net and flew upstairs to our sisters’ room and woke them up.

            From where we were, we clearly heard the footsteps and crackling sound of the chair being pulled. It lasted for several minutes until the sounds came tracking the stairs.

            Dona, the bravest among us and who was not aware that she too would someday bring horror in that house, peeped through the stairs and yelled, “Papa, huwag mo naman kaming takutin. Kami lang ang magkakasama rito. Wala  sina Nanay at Kuya.”

            To our surprise, the sounds of footsteps and the chair ceased.

            Then we remembered that before he died, Papa promised to keep watch over us.

            Five years later, Dona followed him, and there are now two deads making moves felt in our home.

         Sometimes, rare things still happen in our old house. But no matter how much it scares the neighbours and probably us, we’ll keep on going back. It is where we experienced the joy of childhood and the pangs of losing the two people closest to our hearts.  Years later, they became three after Nanay died  of lung cancer.

       At present, the once-haunted house still stand on its old location 45 years ago. Our Kuya and his wife and two teenage daughters, Third and Dona,  live in that house, where we sometimes  go home to take a respite from the mundane of our daily lives in the big city.(END)

Senate grills Comelec over P1B lot purchase

By Macon Ramos-Araneta

Senators slammed the Commission on Elections  for buying a P1.19 billion property in Pasay City for its new headquarters without the proper authority, in budget hearings that have already uncovered the poll body’s purchase of seven king-size beds for more than P91,000 each.

“There appears to be a gross violation of the Constitution on the part of the Comelec when they decided to use their P3.5 billion savings to purchase a piece of land worth P1.188 billion,” said Senator Franklin Drilon, chairman of the Senate finance committee. “Somebody can take this to the Ombudsman for technical malversation.”

Drilon added that the Comelec has admitted entering into a contract with the Philippine Retirement Authority to buy the property, and paying a P250-million advance.

At Thursday’s hearing, Drilon and Senate Minority Floor Leader Alan Peter Cayetano asked Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes what was the legal basis for the Comelec’s move.

“Did you have authority to use these savings to buy land and building? There is no authority whatsoever under the 2012 [General Appropriations Act] for the Comelec to purchase land for a building. That is the role of Congress,” said Drilon.

Brillantes said the Comelec could do so because it had fiscal autonomy as a constitutional body, but the senators disagreed.

Drilon said the Comelec could not invoke fiscal autonomy without first securing approval from Congress, which alone can authorize the spending of public funds.

“The Comelec’s position is totally wrong,” he said.

He added that under the Constitution, the Comelec may dip into its savings only to augment funding for projects already authorized in the General Appropriations Act.

“Without any appropriation for a main building and field office in the 2012 General Appropriations Act, they re-aligned their savings to buy land and building, but this purchase is not authorized in the budget,” said Drilon.

“There is no authority of whatsoever under the 2012 General Appropriations Act for Comelec to purchase land for a building. That is the role of Congress, to appropriate [funds] to specific items,” he added.

But Brillantes insisted that the poll body’s action was “similar” to those taken by other constitutional bodies such as the Commission on Audit, the Commission on Human Rights, the Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Ombudsman.

“We are always in consultation with each other so if we committed a mistake, it’s the mistake of the entire group,” he said.

Earlier this month, the senators took the Comelec to task for buying overpriced beds for vacation cottages that it owns in Baguio City.

The hearings on the Comelec’s proposed P8.4 billion budget for 2013 continue on Sept. 13.