Social safety net

Proponents of the tax reform law kept on reassuring the public that the poor would be protected from potential inflationary effects of increased levies on some basic commodities through a specially designed safety net. Nice intention, but can they implement on time?

Senator Ralph Recto recently pointed out that the implementing agency for this safety net, the DSWD, does not have the manpower to effectively process 5.5 million new families so they can be enrolled in the TRAIN rebate scheme. 

This is the 5.5 million households who are not listed in the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer program and who are supposed to get P200 per month to help them bear the impact of new taxes on the cost of living.

That’s on top of the 4.5 million presently enrolled CCT families whose monthly stipends will also be increased by P200. Under the new law, some 10 million families will be helped to cope with TRAIN-triggered increases in the prices of basic goods.

And food prices have really gone up. I found this out the week I returned from the US and had to do the grocery because my wife was still abroad. Prices of almost everything people buy in the wet markets had gone up from vegetables, fish and meat.

Even middle class families who will benefit from TRAIN through lower withholding tax on salaries will first feel the pain of higher commodity prices. Additionally, LTFRB had been swamped with petitions for fare increases by public transport companies.

Of course it is easy to say some P24.5 billion in TRAIN rebates under the 2018 national budget have been released and now deposited at the Land Bank.  But disposition of the fund is DSWD’s responsibility. Recto is worried the DSWD has so much on its plate that it will be hard-pressed to serve millions of new clients this year.

 “The identification of beneficiaries alone is already a major production. Hindi pa kasama ang delivery ng financial aid. Since 2010, the budget of DSWD has ballooned eight-fold, but its manpower grew by 10 percent only,” Recto said.

 “Dahil sa TRAIN beneficiaries, na mas marami kaysa sa CCT enrollees, nadoble ang mga tinutulungan ng DSWD. Huwag nating sabihin na walang impact ito sa organizational capacity nito,” Recto said.

Recto said the rapid expansion of beneficiaries DSWD serves has caused lapses in the system. Double entries in the roster of beneficiaries “led to the unauthorized release of grants amounting to about P335 million,” COA said in a report released last year.

 The Commission on Audit has even recommended that DSWD suspend the enlargement of CCT until leakages in the system are plugged. Recto said that DSWD has already failed to obligate P23 billion from 2015 to middle of 2017. 

So there… as in the case of Build Build Build, the press releases came ahead of preparing the government’s ability to implement its good intentions. Taxpayers must be reassured that government will not rush to implement without sufficient safeguards. Do not waste our hard-earned money to satisfy the propaganda objectives of the administration.

2017 car sales reach all-time high 

If you are wondering why traffic flow this new year seems worse than last year, wonder no more. The car industry broke the record again in the number of vehicles they sold last year.

The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc (CAMPI) reported that its 2017 sales reached 425,673 units, up 18.4 percent.

On the other hand, the Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors (AVID) reported that sales reached 106,268 units in 2017, 14 percent higher YoY. In 4Q17, sales were up 24 percent to 30,336 units. The light commercial vehicle segment accounted for bulk of AVID sales last year at 66,564 units, while the remaining 35,782 units were accounted for by passenger cars.

No wonder traffic is slow moving in Metro Manila at all times of the day and night. When I arrived from San Francisco very early in the morning, traffic was already bad on the drive home. When I was going home from a dinner party last week, traffic was crawling on EDSA at 11:30 in the evening.

I suppose there is nothing much government can offer us by way of hope that things will get better soon. Most of the plans to address the congestion problems of Metro Manila are long term in nature. Blame all the past administrations from Cory to Ramos to Erap to Ate Glue and P-Noy for ignoring the obvious problems.

And now, the Duterte Administration is making us salivate with Build Build Build. But if we know better, we  shouldn’t get too excited because we are talking of the same government bureaucracy that does not have the capability to carry out the ambitious dream of Sec. Ben Diokno and Sec. Sonny Dominguez.

I know, we should be grateful for whatever glimmer of hope all those power point presentations of the Duterte economic team are giving us. But we have to be on their backs. We must not let them forget that performance does not end with a press release or a television interview. Nor should it end with a groundbreaking ceremony.

Let us constantly nag to remind them that we are watching how they are implementing promises. They should fire all their useless PR people and just let us see how they are performing. PR, after all, isn’t about public relations as it is about performance reporting. To see is to believe.

It does not help we have a talent gap in government because the Dominguezes and the Dioknos are a very small minority of competent professionals trusted by Duterte. Most are political accommodations, which President Duterte has admitted time and again.

The thing is… there are enough talents in this country to help bring its economy and society forward. But Mr. Duterte will have to expand his talent pool beyond Davao and San Beda Law and the political sycophants who helped him win the election.

We are now on the second year of Mr. Duterte’s tenure and it is still us versus them. The Filipino people are so badly divided that the political discourse is teeming with hatred.

It will take a lot from Mr. Duterte to make him a unifying president, but it is essential that he at least tries to be one.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco