Growing people’s cynicism

THE SERIOUS PROBLEM IS TOO MUCH POLITICS -Every year both Senate and the House have to review the national budget thoroughly before they will agree either to increase or realign public expenditures. Under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, it has been a great deal more thorough specifically this year compared to the past two years or it had been during the time of his predecessors. Even so, Congress leaders and senior officials do not think they have accomplished enough. Public money still is far from being used as efficiently and effectively as it used to be.
Today, as in the yesteryears, close to half of the government’s usable budget – that portion of the country’s annual appropriations left over after providing for debt services – more than half of the usable funds goes to personnel services alone. As a result, government simply does not have enough capital resources to keep up even its basic services – and what it does spend has gone disproportionate to the non-poor sector instead. Simply put, the situation probably was the primary reason that recently prodded President PNoy to veto the much-awaited P3 billion Magna Karta for the poor.
What is more lamentable is that there have been several bills in Congress aimed at easing out mass poverty and stirring up countryside development that are crying out for attention. These include proposals for rural infrastructure like farm-to-market roads, post-harvest facilities and irrigation system, for expanding energy source, water supply and countryside investment. What makes matter worse, for instance, after analyzing budget trends independent economists and financial experts concluded that the bulk of public money actually goes to the country’s richer regions and priority development funds ended up in the coffers of bogus organizations.
Many administration policies actually are not implemented accordingly as provided under the existing government procedures. As a matter of fact, our tax system takes – in percentage terms – more from the poor (about 30 percent) than the rich, which is only 20 percent. Tax evasion involving mostly big capitalists and influential entrepreneurs cost the government about P40 to P50 billion a year. Government says it implemented an intensive tax collection campaign yet independent financial experts refuted the claim saying there is actually no effective capital-gains tax and taxes of real property and other profitable ventures are both extremely low and lightly enforced.
Another serious problem is too much politics. Like our socio-economic policies, politics still has a kind of duality. Side by side with the politics of patronage in traditional society, what we have is a modern political community largely based in Metro Manila and other bustling metropolis. Public policies therefore are mainly crafted by lawmakers who likewise live in the big cities. On the other hand, the urban middle class has begun to exert its influence on national politics and imposed its own standards on legislators who were overwhelmingly elected by the poor majority. Obviously, we now have a discrepancy between what the poor majority accepts and what the big-city middle class insists on.
These problems will become more and more severe in coming years – unless Congress and the Aquino leadership soon raise the political will to do something about it. The urgency of their work is underlined for them by the increasing impatience of the people – the poor majority in particular – and the growing pessimism about their prospects and the future of the country. The Executive and the Legislative branches of government cannot take their responsibilities lightly certainly because they cannot command people’s loyalties to the leadership, the legislature and the representative system it stands for unless they can prove to them over and over again that they have their interests at heart. Of course, they cannot take the problem casually when what are at stake are the chances of the ruling party to dominate the midterm elections scheduled for May.