Slapping a TRO against that stupid BIR ruling

I consider today as one of the great days in world history as it is the 70th anniversary of D-Day or the Allied Landings in Normandy a.k.a. "Operation Overload", dubbed as the largest seaborne invasion in history. Some 24,000 US, British, Canadian airborne troops crossed the English Channel early dawn while the allied infantry, complete with tanks and armor, landed on the 50-mile wide Normandy beach split into sectors called Utah, Sword, Juno, Omaha, and Gold. Some 4,000 plus men on the allied side died on this day while the Germans also had a similar number of casualties.

While we're in the Pacific Theater of WW2, the Normandy invasion marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi horde's control of almost all of Europe, so now the Americans could focus on the Japanese in the Pacific Theater. It also showed to the world that in face of tyranny, allies could group together as one army to destroy an ideology poised on a people that didn't realize they were being fooled. It was only after the allied invasions that most Germans realized that Hitler had crematoriums to destroy the Jewish race.

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I don't know why the Supreme Court deferred the release of the ruling for the highly-controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program which was supposed to come out this week. The SC deferred it to June 10th. Of course, the Solicitor General has been trying to fight this potentially disastrous ruling from the SC by saying that since the DAP was no longer in use due to its temporary nature, the case is moot and academic. Nice try Mr. Solicitor General. It is akin to a rapist saying that the rape was already done, so it is moot and academic to file a case against him. So we'll just have to anxiously wait for this SC decision on the DAP.

Meanwhile, those in the Medical Profession, doctors and nurses can now breathe easy because the SC issued a Temporary Restraining Order against the Bureau of Internal Revenue's Regulation No.4-2014 imposing additional requirements for the registration of Doctors of Medicine and impose those ridiculous fees. We wrote a parody on this regulation when it came out that henceforth doctors would be imposing certain fees depending on the level of health of a person.

For instance, fees for colds would cost a patient from P50 to P100 depending on the degree of the cold. Heart operations would cost P600 thousand or less, depending on the kind of medical equipment being used. Getting a doctor's advice would also have charges depends on the advice.

Earlier the SC also issued a similar TRO against the BIR on the same regulation given to those in the legal profession. Yes, the BIR wanted lawyers to also come up with a list of fees which we also parodied… like fees for attempted rape should only be P20,000, but if the rape was committed, it should double to P40,000. But if the crime has moved from simple rape to rape with murder the fees should now be in the P100,000 range. But then how can the poor people pay for those lawyers' fees? Thanks to the SC. It respected the sanctity of lawyer-client relationship, which is a sacred bond.

This is why I believe that this BIR regulation has reached stupid heights! Incidentally, people are asking why BIR chief Kim Henares is suddenly very quiet when the big breaking news was that Department of Budget and Management  Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad only paid P8,150 for his taxes before he joined the government? So where are you Kim?

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Last Wednesday night, Marco Polo Plaza Hotel general manager Hans Hauri invited a select group of people to a sumptuous dinner party reminiscent of an era gone by, when the Marco Polo Plaza turned the Manila Room into something similar to the dining room of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. My wife, Jessica, who is the hotel's food consultant, did some research to find out what menu was served on that day, June 12,, 1898.

During the cocktail reception, Marco Polo Plaza flew in a lady from Tabaqueria de Filipinas, Inc. complete with a tobacco press while the lady was rolling fresh tobacco leaves, which were later presented to the guests by no less than Mr. Roman Ripoll, the sales & marketing manager and owner of Tabaqueria de Filipinas, while the lady guests were given each an embroidered purse.

Thus, we were served with certain foods that food critic Dr. Nestor Alonso even admitted that he had never tasted before such as the Hamonadong Sugpo. Of course most of the menu was French inspired like the Herb and Honey Roasted Turkey with cranberry sauce served to perfection. Even the dessert was truly unique -- a Sampaguita ice cream  where the scent of the Sampaguita flower gets into your taste buds. This is the Marco Polo's way of celebrating the June 12th Independence Day with their Comida de Independencia with foods that you could never find in any restaurant in Cebu. Congrats Hans Hauri!

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