Roxas: Better pick for governance business

In severe difficulty, when faced with two hard choices, we often declare, you’ve got to pick between the “devil and the deep blue sea”. On the other hand, when faced with two undesirable alternatives, we often say, we have to “make a choice between two evils”. 

Lately, with the untimely passing of Sec. Jesse Robredo (DILG), these two phrases are brought to fore. Absolutely, not only because in having one in Sec. Robredo, the task of looking for the right replacement is a task so daunting and intimidating, but due to the greed-driven interests of some presidential wannabes in the position.

The tremor-like jockeying and lobbying were obviously felt for a couple of weeks. It worsened as Sec. Robredo was laid to rest. Clearly, however, as the D-day (decision day) nears, choices narrowed down to two (2) presidential wannabes, Vice President Jejomar Binay and Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Sec. Mar Roxas. Likened to either a choice “between the devil and the deep blue sea” or a choice “between two evils”, President Aquino (PNoy) picked Sec. Mar Roxas for the job. Whether it is the “lesser evil” choice or the “deep blue sea” preference, we do not know. Without biases, however, we would wish to present informative facts and figures we know that could be of help in either agreeing or disagreeing with PNoy’s choice.

First and foremost, DOTC Sec. Roxas administrative credentials would show that he was once secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). During his stint, he was dubbed as “Mr. Palengke”. Whether he earned that moniker out of good performance in the DTI, we can’t unequivocally declare. What we certainly know, however, was that it made him top the senatorial race in the elections that immediately followed. Unlike Sec. Robredo though, he has no vast experience in running a local government unit (LGU).

On the other hand, like Sec. Robredo, VP Binay has vast experience in running an LGU as multi-termer mayor of a highly urbanized or mega city. In fact, his experience is far greater than that of Sec. Robredo due to the magnitude of the City of Makati’s concerns. 

However, unknown to most of us, as a mayor of the City of Makati, VP Binay has done something that is not worth emulating. In fact, such reality makes him unfit for the job of supervising LGU executives. Truth to tell, in a landmark decision, the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) ordered the City Government of Makati on December 16, 2009 to pay the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) PhP1.2 Billion in deficiency taxes. The CTA ordered them to pay the BIR the amount of PhP1,046,833,846.08 and PhP217,807,339.66, representing its deficiency taxes for taxable years 1999 to 2001, and taxable years 2002 to 2004, respectively. This decision is an off-shoot of an assessment issued to the City of Makati by the BIR’s Makati Regional Office for deficiency Withholding Taxes on Compensation, Expanded Withholding Tax, Value-Added Tax and Withholding Tax on VAT for the years 1999 to 2004.

Forced to pay, then Mayor Jejomar Binay declared, “this is political harassment”. In heaven’s name, this is not political harassment. Notably, LGUs are exempt from internal revenue taxes. As such tax-exempt entity, these assessments represent largely withheld income taxes from employees and withheld income taxes and VAT from suppliers of goods and services that were not remitted. As deputized collection agents, they are supposed to remit these collected taxes. Despite these facts, then Mayor Jejomar Binay was so adamant in not remitting it. Incidentally, this could be true too in other LGUs. 

Apparently, therefore, he does not have the moral ascendancy to tell erring LGU executives to follow the basic law on taxation because he himself has vehemently violated it. Thus, this column goes with PNoy’s choice for Sec. Roxas. Agreeably, instead of dancing with an apparent malevolent, we’d rather swim with a man “in the deep blue sea” despite all uncertainties. 

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