JUST like when he was still the city mayor, President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to be getting the full support of fellow Dabawenyos, particularly in the implementation of his policy programs aimed at improving people's lives.
Take for instance the Comprehensive Tax Reform Package (CTRP) proposed by the Department of Finance (DOF) and pushed by the Duterte administration.
Although Congress has yet to approve the proposal, seen as an effective tax measure to raise enough money to bankroll the government's ambitious public investment strategy to sustain growth momentum and attain inclusive growth, it is now being supported by big Davao-based businesses.
For one, homegrown Phoenix Petroleum, the country's leading independent oil company, has expressed willingness to voluntarily pre-pay excise taxes due for its gasoline and petroleum-based product sales in 2017, a move that will pave the way for the effective implementation of CTRP once approved.
This is some sort of a birthday gift as Phoenix president and chief executive officer Dennis Uy made the announcement days before President Duterte celebrated his 72nd birthday last March 28.
Also, Phoenix is the first oil company which volunteered to pay its taxes in advance to demonstrate its full support for a government program like the CTRP.
Uy said the move is a gesture of the company's "staunch commitment to responsible and participatory governance and to the welfare of the Filipino people."
"We are doing this because it's the right thing to do. We see it as one more way to help the government find more money to support necessary services to our fellow Filipinos," Uy said, citing the sustainability of the pre-payment process.
"At Phoenix Petroleum, we have found the flexibility and creativity to pre-pay taxes while at the same time protecting the interests of all stakeholders," he said.
Taking a cue from this homegrown oil company, other businesses are also encouraged to find their own ways to contribute to the process of nation -building on the Duterte watch.
"We hope other corporate citizens will consider the same action, we aren’t trying to tell others what to do, but we hope those in our industry and in other industries will consider doing something similar," Uy said.
The DOF has crafted the CTRP not only to make the country's tax system simpler, fairer and more effective, especially for low- and middle-income taxpayers, but also to raise enough money to bankroll the government's ambitious public investment strategy to sustain the growth momentum and attain economic inclusion.
This strategy is anchored on record spending on infrastructure, human capital and social protection for the poor in order to reduce the poverty rate from the current 21 percent to 14 percent by 2022 and to transform the Philippines by then into an upper middle-income economy.
The proposed tax measure will also help realize the government's target to expand the economy to seven percent this year from 6.6 percent last year.
The first package of the CTRP is contained in House Bill, authored by Quirino Representative Dakila Carlo Cua, which seeks to cut personal income tax rates as a way to put more money in the pockets of low- and middle-income taxpayers and to offset the projected revenue loss with compensatory measures such as broadening the Value Added Tax base and adjusting the excise taxes on automobiles and petroleum products.
Complementing such policy changes are tax administration reforms to reduce corruption and improve the collection efficiency of the Bureaus of Internal Revenue and of Customs.
