Editorials:

Illustration by Jimbo Albano

CREDIT must go to Sen. Pia Cayetano for pointing out a crucial point conveniently glossed over by the powers that be who dispense billions in largesse as if they owned it, and as if the beneficiaries ought to be grateful for their charity. Why, the point has been overlooked, as well, by most taxpayers, who should be dismayed.

In pooh-poohing the government’s much-hyped National Social Welfare Program, the good senator goes beyond the usual route of describing the short-term relief it promises to the people as subsidies that are “shallow, low-impact and unsustainable.”

This institutionalization of the dole system, as she put it—and all its attendant hazards in terms of not reaching the critical mass of those who really need it and, worse, even using scarce resources as a political tool for the undeserving—need not have come to pass if the government had only faithfully followed the legal mandate of earmarking. Meaning, it should have abided by the various enabling laws that require the state to earmark for certain sectors or agencies a certain percentage of revenue from enforcing these statutes.

She cites some examples: Under Section 7 of the sin-tax law, 2.5 percent of incremental revenues from the expanded value-added tax (E-VAT) should go to increasing universal coverage under Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), while another 2.5 percent should go to the disease-prevention fund of the Department of Health.

Furthermore, under Section 21 (D) of the E-VAT law, the government is mandated to allocate 50 percent of the share of local government units from incremental revenues of E-VAT to the following: 15 percent for education, 10 percent for the health insurance premiums of enrolled indigents under PhilHealth, 15 percent for environmental conservation and 10 percent for agricultural modernization.

Given this, Cayetano, thus, reiterates her call to the President, the Departments of Finance and the Budget and Management to immediately release the amounts earmarked for health, education, environment and agriculture under Republic Act (RA) 9334 (sin- tax law) and RA 9337 (E-VAT), instead of engaging in short-term subsidy programs tackily called “Katas ng E-VAT.”

According to the senator, she had been following up this matter with Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and other concerned agencies, but they have not replied. “It’s evident that not a single centavo has been released under the social earmarking provisions three years since the passage of these laws.”

In contrast to the current dole-out programs, these “earmarked funds are clearly mandated by law and could benefit the people on a sustained basis,” notes Cayetano, who chairs the Senate Committees on Health and on Environment.

The so-called windfall profits from E-VAT, not only on oil but other commodities, and incremental revenues from increased sin taxes are better channeled, in the senator’s view, to the national health budget so it can meet the minimum threshold investment set by the World Health Organization of 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

This way, development programs launched by the government can boost the chances of achieving concrete and verifiable targets, such as the commitments of the Philippines under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—where, if latest reports are to be believed, the country is lagging in critical targets.

The crucial commitments that must be met under the MDGs, in her view, should include cutting poverty incidence by half, ensuring full enrollment and participation in basic and secondary school and reducing the country’s high maternal and infant mortality rates.

Early signals from the economic agencies of the government, however, indicate that this year’s budget process will be more of the same: They will promise to pour in huge funds for infrastructure, and for agricultural modernization, because that is the clamor. Especially with the latter, lest people keep raising the question of why, after tens of billions of pesos expended for the purpose and several scams later, we are the world’s biggest rice importer.

As for social welfare, which they can only ignore at their own peril, given the increasing misery of people from the food and fuel crises? Instead of getting the additional funds from earmarking, as the good senator has insisted, the government apparently plans to get it again from the people—hence, the move to touch the funds of workers, not tax money, by creating the dubious social-welfare council to be chaired by newly minted Social Security System (SSS) chief Romulo Neri. We warn them this early, though: Trifling with the private funds of workers in the SSS is a perilous route.

Don’t compound the failure to implement the earmarking mandates of various laws by “earmarking” something you do not own.

Editorial: Earmarking our money

CREDIT must go to Sen. Pia Cayetano for pointing out a crucial point conveniently glossed over by the powers that be who dispense billions in largesse as if they owned it, and as if the beneficiaries ought to be grateful for their charity

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