LABOR Day is just a month away and Sen. Mar Roxas wants to be able to present a labor law exempting minimum-wage earners from income taxes so that he will push for it as soon as Congress resumes in April.

But Roxas is a little worried about the bill’s timely passage, noting that it will take political will on the part of the Arroyo administration to have the bill passed in time for enactment on Labor Day.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines has been pushing to get Congress to pass the bill as part of the May 1 celebration because the present economic situation is pressing hard on low-income workers’ livelihood.

“Another Labor Day is coming but this administration’s promise to our workers [tax exemption] is still unfulfilled. Should they continue to depend on nothing in the midst of their suffering?” he asked.

Roxas reminded Malacañang that “giving a tax break to minimum-wage earners is imperative in light of the increasing prices of fuel and food. It will only take a determined push from the President to get the ball rolling in the administration-dominated House.”

He pointed out that while all tax bills are supposed to originate from the House, he had already filed its Senate counterpart—SB103 that also includes all government employees from Salary Grades 1 to 3.

Roxas reported that the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Sen. Francis Escudero, has already discussed the bill but is awaiting House action before it could transmit its report to plenary.

The Roxas bill, once approved, would exempt about half a million workers from paying income taxes.

Ermita hit for ‘stretching’ SC ruling

SENATORS on Monday slammed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s “erroneous” interpretation that a recent Supreme Court (SC) ruling effectively allowed Cabinet officials to evade Senate summons to testify in inquiries into alleged anomalies in the Arroyo administration until the publication of Senate rules covering investigations in aid of legislation.

INTERNATIONAL Container Terminal Services Inc., the country’s largest port operator, has bagged the 25-year contract to manage and operate the state-owned Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) in Misamis Oriental, besting two other bidders.

THE National Police and the Armed Forces are discussing a proposal for the police organization to take over the anti-insurgency operations in some areas in the country.

A NATIONAL Police task force tasked to investigate cases of unexplained killings has filed 83 cases, arrested of 28 suspects, affected the surrender of 14 others and had four assailants convicted, a report to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) revealed.

A RECENT report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that while the Philippines has a low brain drain rate, Filipinos who reached college remain attracted in working or settling over long periods in OECD’s 29 member-countries.

ORGAN transplants in the Philippines, including those scheduled under the medical-tourism program, have been temporarily held in abeyance by the Department of Health (DOH) pending approval of a new policy being drafted that will establish a board to set the guidelines on organ transplantation in the country.

ALARMED by what he described as the “alarming rate” of incestuous relationship in the families of overseas contract workers, a legislator has filed a bill moved to criminalize incestuous sexual relations between family members, imposing stiffer penalty to guilty parties.

LABOR Day is just a month away and Sen. Mar Roxas wants to be able to present a labor law exempting minimum-wage earners from income taxes so that he will push for it as soon as Congress resumes in April.