Willy Parayno’s red army

Bank notes 1: Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chairman Alfonso Yuchengco has set aside two hours every day this week to be interviewed by Nick Joaquin, who is doing his biography. Al Yuchengco is off next week for the United States and will be back in a couple of weeks.

The last biography completed by Mr. Joaquin was that of President Macapagal-Arroyo, which was supposed to be used for next year’s presidential election before it was rendered moot by the Dec. 30 announcement of the President that she wasn’t running after all.

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Bank notes 2: Bureau of Internal Revenue commissioner and former naval commander Guillermo Parayno was at the head of a red army – a convoy of red-shirted tax mappers – which swooped down last week on the main street of a Parañaque subdivision.

While tax mapping is not new, doing it on a large-scale in a specific area is.

In this particular case, Willy Parayno found out that 80 percent of 350 or so retail establishments were not registered with the BIR and did not, therefore, issue receipts that could be monitored by the BIR.

Mr. Parayno’s red army was terribly busy last week. It was also in Valenzuela where most of the rice millers (second only in size to those in nearby Bocaue, Bulacan) underdeclared their income.

By the way, the deadline for the filing of income tax returns is April 15. For those whose tax are not deducted at source and who have to pay more than P2,000, the BIR has an installment plan, pay the first P2,000 to an authorized agent bank on April 15 and the balance by end-June.

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Bank notes 3: When Asian Institute of Management president Roberto de Ocampo finalized the lecture schedule of Nobel Prize for economics winner Joseph Stiglitz, it was on the assumption that yesterday was the first working day of the week and that Bataan Day would be celebrated tomorrow, as it has always been.

Those who, therefore attended last night’s lecture either had to cut short their three-day weekend or were the beneficiaries of their bosses who didn’t want to waste the tickets paid for by the company.

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The foundation named after the father of Lucio Tan was supposed to have paid for half of the cost of the one-month China trip of 700 students who wanted to learn Mandarin.

All the students (and their parents) showed up during the despedida party fully paid for by the foundation but only a third of students will go to China. The rest backed out because of fear of getting (and dying from) severe acute respiratory syndrome.

By the way, some travel agencies which have focused on the Hong Kong China trade plan to shut down. More are offering ridiculously cheap packages but there aren’t any takers.