BY PRINCE GOLEZ and IME SORNITO
ILOILO City – The Senate committee on public services is holding here today a hearing on the “domino effect” of Republic Act 10963 or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law particularly on fuel, electricity, water, and transportation.
Committee chairperson Sen. Grace Poe said the hearing hoped to come up with social protection measures to safeguard the poor from spikes in prices of widely used goods and services that may have been brought about by the first tranche of the Duterte administration’s tax reform package.
Senators JV Ejercito and Nancy Binay confirmed their attendance in the Iloilo hearing, too.
The hearing at the Sangguniang Panlalawigan session hall of the Iloilo provincial capitol starts at 10 a.m.
“Kailangang isipin natin kung paano mapagagaan ang buhay ng ating mga kababayan lalo na sa probinsya dahil sa pagmahal ng kuryente, tubig at bilihin at ang nakaambang pagtaas ng pamasahe,” said Poe.
Just this May 22 oil companies implemented a big-time increase on pump prices, prompting transport groups to call for higher fares. This led to calls for higher public transport fares and wages.
According to Poe, her office received reports that pump prices in the provinces reached a staggering P70 per liter.
“Sa ibang probinsya mas mataas ang binabayad nila sa utilities. Ayaw naman natin ng gano’n. Isa pa, ‘yung mga nagmamaneho ng mga jeep, taxi at bus doon sa mga probinsya lahat kailangang marining,” she said.“Hindi sila nakakapunta sa Maynila para mapakinggan. Ang hearing sa Iloilo ay pagkakataon ng ating mga kababayan sa Visayas na makilahok.”
In particular, the head of the Public Services panel voiced her concern that the tax reform law purportedly offset workers’ higher take-home pay amid the unrelenting hikes in consumer prices.
Under the TRAIN Law, poorest families are entitled to get P2,400 each in cash grant this year, and will increase to P3,600 per beneficiary in 2019 and 2020.
Consumer prices rose 4.5 percent in April compared to a year ago, setting its fastest pace in over five years.
Aside from the TRAIN Law, the Senate committee on public services will also be tackling the proposed creation of more LTO district offices in the Visayas, and franchises of public utilities.
Also attending today’s hearing are Finance secretary Carlos Dominguez III, National Economic and Development Authority secretary Ernesto Pernia, Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Teresita Herbosa, National Telecommunications Commission chairman Gamaliel Cordoba, and Philippine Competition Commission chairman Arsenio Balisacan.
Others who confirmed their attendance are Land Transportation (LTO) assistant secretary Edgar Galvante, Iloilo’s Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. and Vice Gov. Christine Garin, LTO Region 6 director Roland Ramos and the officer-in-charge of the administrative division Ma. Nanette De Ocampo, LTO Region 7 director Victor Emmanuel Caindec and the acting chief of the administrative division Lovelien Dongallo, Bohol Chronicle Radio Corp. president Peter Dejaresco, Bohol Chronicle Radio Corp. Board of Director and editor Zoilo Dejaresco III, Radio Marine Network, Inc. chairman and president Segundo Lustre Jr., Radio Marine Network, Inc. director and vice president Regis Abuel, and Volunteer LifeCare Ministries, Inc. chief executive officer Tirso Jamandre III./PN
