EDITORIAL - Philippine predicament: No big fat joke

The long-dreaded expanded value added tax swung into effect yesterday, with the very same government that had been aggressively pushing for its enactment and implementation cautioning against overpricing and other forms of price manipulation.

Of course there is validity to the warning, considering that the Filipino is notorious when it comes to taking advantage of a situation. To be sure, there will be many who will unnecessarily jack their prices up, the eVAT having presented itself as a convenient scapegoat.

But most of the prices that will be going up will be going up not because someone is out to make a fast buck by trying to take advantage of another. Most of the prices will be going up as a natural consequence of the eVAT.

It is not enough to say that the eVAT is a tax on consumption and that, as a consequence, if you do not consume you do not get taxed. To pursue that line of reasoning is to be insulting to the intelligence of the Filipino.

Many of the consumable goods and services that fall under the scope of the eVAT will be goods and services that Filipinos just cannot do without. In other words, the logic behind the tax-on-consumption argument does not apply.

As if on cue, oil industry players in the country said they are reducing their prices in accordance with the current global trend, which is that prices are going down. But such pieces of information are hardly mesmerizing or inspiring anymore.

Everybody knows that oil prices are very volatile and could rise without any notice at any given factor. The low prices that oil companies are trumpeting right now could rise against at about the same time tomorrow.

What is worse is that, while it may be true the oil companies have slashed their prices in accordance with the global trend, their domestic prices will still be higher this time around because of the eVAT.

We do not like this reduction of the whole Philippine predicament into something akin to a play on words. Things are not getting funny anymore. It is bad enough that everyone is suffering, it is worse when some people think it is one big fat joke.