Irate workers and ambulant vendors from the Peoples Coalition Against Regressive Taxation (Pcart) trooped to the Department of Finance (DOF) on Friday to condemn the department for prodding the Sen. Franklin Drilon, chairman of Senate Ways and Means, to execute the government’s plan to raise P45-billion by legislating a new ‘sin’ tax law.

The militant workers labeled the DOF as a butcher of their jobs and livelihood. They urged the department to tax the rich and not the poor, a central principle in taxation. The DOF is the government’s primary agency that designed and convinced legislators to enact a new sin tax law to fulfill the government’s fiscal requirements.

“Secretary Cesar Purisima has only displayed its insensitivity to the Filipino workers and farmers by pushing for a regressive tax measure that will displace more than three million already productive Filipinos while tycoons continue to reap billions of pesos in profit,” said secretary general Gie Relova of Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino in National Capital Region and in Rizal chapter.

“Tycoons and traders should be the targets of the government’s taxation schemes and not the general public because logic dictates that they are the ones with the capacity to pay unlike the workers and farmers or the end-consumers. The government must instead pursue raising corporate taxes,” the labor leader added.

Chairman JC Gatungay of Samahan ng mga Manininda sa Komunidad, an organization of sari-sari store owners claimed that they are unconvinced with the pending sin tax bill because of the government’s schizophrenic programs.

On one hand, it spends billions of pesos in promoting micro, small and medium enterprises at the same time pursuing an unjust sin tax measures that will inevitably ruin established livelihood and local industries.

The coalition reiterated its call to totally scrap the sin tax bills that will be a financial burden shouldered by end consumers and not by tobacco and alcohol tycoons.