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NINE
days after saying that Internal Revenue Commissioner
Jose Mario Buñag would keep his post pending a Palace
“review” of the performance of agencies in the fiscal
sector, Malacañang unceremoniously sacked its chief
taxman on Wednesday. It offered him an ambassadorial
post, which he declined, saying he’d rather go back to
the private sector.
President Arroyo designated BIR Deputy Commissioner
Lilian Hefti, a career revenue officer with a 29-year
service, as officer-in-charge.
While
politely thanking President Arroyo for giving him the
opportunity to serve the country, Buñag did not mince
words when it came to other officials, whom he accused
of making him a scapegoat for their incompetence. He was
widely believed to refer to, among others, his boss,
Finance Secretary Gary Teves, for setting unrealistic
policies and targets.
Sources
said the Palace announcement at midday had shocked Buñag,
who had painstakingly explained to mediamen the past
week why the BIR should not be solely blamed for the
revenue collection shortfall in the first
quarter—precisely the issue raised last week, when
BusinessMirror first ran an exclusive story on June 11,
quoting sources as saying Buñag would be made to take
the blame for this and could lose his post.
On
Independence Day, Teves told reporters the President,
after meeting him and Buñag, decided to keep Buñag; and
they all supposedly agreed that the time for reckoning
performance was not the first quarter, when other
factors could account for the underperformance.
The
Palace also revoked the day after that a controversial
executive order that created a new deputy commissioner’s
office in the BIR, virtually lodging 70 percent of the
bureau’s powers and responsibilities to that office.
Buñag said he was not consulted on that EO 625, which
was recalled and promptly replaced with EO 625-A.
On
Tuesday, June 19, Finance Secretary Gary Teves revealed
the deficit figures of P41.8 billion for the January to
May period, underscoring once more the shortfall in BIR
collections.
In May
alone, the government posted a P1.7-billion deficit for
May due to revenue undercollections.
The
President made the announcement replacing Buñag during a
luncheon meeting with media executives at the Palace
Aguinaldo Room in response to questions about the BIR
chief, whom she said was offered “very important
European [diplomatic] post.”
Buñag
thanked Mrs. Arroyo for allowing him to serve the
country, but attacked “higher authorities”, apparently
referring to Finance Secretary Teves and other members
of the economic team, for using him as a “sacrificial
lamb” for their “unrealistic, failed and bungled
policies.”
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in his weekly
news conference that the President has chosen Hefti, the
No. 2 official in the BIR, to run the bureau until a
permanent replacement is chosen.
Ermita
quoted the President as saying during her luncheon
meeting with the media that career officials, such as
Hefti, “would tend to perform well.”
Ermita
said Teves has yet to submit to the President a
shortlist of candidates for permanent BIR chief.
As for
the Bureau of Customs (BOC), Ermita said that the
President has made “no mention whatsoever of any move to
replace the BOC commissioner.”
Ermita
said that Buñag was offered an ambassadorial post in
Europe—reported to be Norway.
In his
statement, Buñag thanked Mrs. Arroyo for the offer but
said he would rather take a breather from public service
after his nearly two-year stint as BIR chief, and to
“explore other options.”
Buñag,
who was BIR deputy commissioner before he was designated
as OIC and later permanent BIR chief, took an angry
swipe at the economic managers who had set what he
called “unrealistic” revenue targets at the expense of
officials like him.
“There
are higher authorities in the government who would like
to wash their hands of responsibility for the dire
consequences of their unrealistic, failed and bungled
policies and who look for a sacrificial lamb and a
scapegoat to which they can assign blame. So be it.
Their time to answer for their failure and incompetence
will also eventually come,” he said.
Buñag
reported that during his time, BIR officials tried their
“best to meet the administration’s expectations.”
Buñag
reported that in 2006, the BIR even exceeded 2005
collections by 22 percent, “a feat not achieved since
1997” and “surpassed our real collection target by P30
billion.”
Asked
about the rift between Buñag and Teves caused by
differences over revenue targets, Ermita said that Teves
was only doing his job when he insisted on a particular
target for the revenue collection agencies.
“I think
we cannot take it from the supervisor, the secretary, to
be able to set his own policy and set his own goals for
the department. Otherwise, the President would be the
one running after him, and her factotum for revenue
collection is the Secretary of Finance. So let’s say
that the Secretary of Finance has his own responsibility
on the matter of revenue collection,” he said.
Ermita
said the government remains confident of achieving its
target of a balanced budget next year.
“We are
confident that by 2008, we will be able to reach a
balanced budget. The OFW remittance is up and the stock
market is okay. Foreign investment in the Philippines is
higher than normal. All this would add to the factors
that would lead us to a balanced budget by 2008,” he
said. |
