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One of the things the sage and saint, Josemaria Escriva, taught is
for us to thank God for humiliations, sufferings and whatever gives
us pain and discomfort. All of these bad things, if we had our minds
on the final goal, would improve our character and lead us to God.
They also make those who sincerely want to learn
from experience and reality to make necessary and beneficial
lifestyle changes.
The severely steep rise of oil prices is
something we Filipinos should welcome in that spirit.
Improvement in traffic
One of the effects of the high price of gasoline
is the improvement in the traffic.
A lot of middle class people are now using the
LRT and the MRT trains. These people have a lot of clout if they got
together and decided to be assertive. When they become regular
riders of the LRT and the MRT they will realize that the government
must do something about improving the public transport system. They
will then use their clout to get the government to build more train
lines and make the country’s city-commuter train systems as
pleasant, efficient and safe as those in Hong Kong and
Singapore—or Boston, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo. Or even Rome and
Paris.
Having such a world class city-commuter Metro
(the Tube or the Underground to Londoners or the T to Bostonians)
will immediately transform Filipinos in the National Capital Region
into persons like First World people. I’ve heard that an ADB
official was so impressed with the lifestyle change in Filipinos
since the oil crisis struck us really hard a week or so ago. His
Filipino friends were no longer late for meetings because they had
been leaving their cars at home and using the MRT!
One thing that never fails to strike Filipinos
who live in Hong Kong, Singapore and the key European cities is that
the lords of wealth and government power take subways and elevated
trains just like ordinary businessmen, members of parliament, lowly
clerks and janitors.
Feudalistic mindset
The decision to have very good, pleasant and
prompt trains that will serve the basic travel needs of the rich,
the middle class and the poor alike will cause a change also in the
way Filipinos view each other. A good part of the feudalistic
mindset will disappear. Janitors will feel uplifted by the
realization that his big boss, and even the big bosses of this
nation, take the same train he uses.
And the big bosses will learn to respect the
God-given human dignity of the lowlier specimens. Everyone in a
commuter train would be subject to the same Jemaah Islamiya bombing
threat or the inconveniences of a Meralco outage.
The lords of wealth and power who use the trains
will insist, along with the poorer riders, that these be properly
air-conditioned and kept spick and span. Something to an extent like
this happened during the era when Madame Imelda Marcos’ Love Buses
were in operation and the LRT trains were new.
The benefits of being forced to make lifestyle
changes have to do with my objection to the suggestion of our
beloved Catholic bishops, among others, to temporarily suspend the
E-VAT on oil products for the sake of the poor.
Pro-poor projects
Suspension of the 12-percent sales tax on oil
products will mainly benefit the rich. The poor will not benefit
much for they use very little oil products. They use all the little
money they have for food. The government’s loss of P73.1 billion
from the E-VAT on oil products will hinder ongoing pro-poor
projects.
Until the proposals to suspend the E-VAT on oil
products surfaced, few realized that there was a “windfall” of
collections for the government.
When the Expanded Value Added tax amendment to
the Tax Code was passed in 2005, the price of a barrel of crude in
the global market was $70. The 12 percent E-VAT was based on that
cost. With the government’s E-VAT revenues so many pro-poor
projects, educational and health services, livelihood programs,
etcetera could be funded. Now the cost of crude is more than double
and might even triple before the end of 2008. That means government
coffers have had a massive “windfall.”
The Times’ Senior Reporter Efren Danao wrote
about a penetrating question from Sen. Francis Escudero. If there is
a “windfall” revenue from the E-VAT on oil, where is it? The
amount of E-VAT “windfall” revenue (based on the price of crude
above the $70 per barrel price when the E-VAT amendment was passed)
is supposed to be P18.6 billion until end of 2008—and growing.
I think the money’s there. And that’s why
President Arroyo can afford to give away P500 to poor families who
are friends of her LGU allies and to sell imported NFA rice at
subsidy prices to the lucky poor who can get Access Cards. Let’s
hope and pray hard that not too much of the windfall E-VAT money
goes to the pockets of government officials and their relatives.
rq_bas@yahoo.com
rqb@manilatimes.net
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