(By. Rep. Edcel C. Lagman on 11 March 2020)
House Bill No. 5832 will uselessly balloon the bureaucracy even as it will accelerate, via a purported “one-stop shop”, the deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers without addressing the enormous and escalating social costs of labor migration.
I vote “No” on House Bill No. 59 which further inordinately allows foreigners to own and operate retail stores in the Philippines.
Our economic leaders’ excessive predisposition to attracting foreign investments is grossly unpatriotic, even as the thesis that abandoning the nationality barriers will lead to the rapid entry of foreign capital is purely theoretical.
I vote against House Bill No. 78 or the “New Public Service Act” which is fatally violative of the Constitution as it allows traditional and sensitive public utilities like transportation and telecommunication companies to be owned and operated by foreigners to the extent of 100%.
This is contrary to Section 11 of Article XII of the Constitution which reserves the ownership, operation, control and management of public utilities to Filipino citizens or to corporations or associations at least 60 per centum of whose capital is owned by Filipinos.
I vote No to the CITIRA Bill for the following overriding reasons:
1. The CITIRA Bill (HB 4157) is a classic example of how skewed the Philippine tax system is against the poor. On December 19, 2017 the TRAIN Act (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) was approved into law which imposes the ultimate burden of cascading excise taxes on petroleum products and sweetened foodstuffs on consumers, the great number of whom are the poor, disadvantaged, and marginalized.
The TRAIN Act even imposes new excise taxes on LPG and kerosene of which the poor are the primary consumers.
This refers to the voting of the Committee on Justice yesterday wherein twenty-two (22) Members only voted to approve the Committee Report and Resolution dismissing the consolidated impeachment complaints against seven Supreme Court Justices, namely now-Chief Justice Teresita de Castro, Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Francis Jardeleza, Noel Tijam, Andres Reyes Jr., and Alexander Gesmundo.
