The Christmas season in the Philippines comes as early as the start of the ber-months. It is also the time of the year when thousands, out of millions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) spread around the world, come here in our country for the traditional family reunions during Christmas season.
Hailed as modern-day “heroes,” our OFWs account for keeping the Philippine economy afloat through their foreign exchange remittances, especially during the past global financial crisis. Our migrant workers continue to drive domestic demand with the money they send home to their families. As of latest official figures, OFW remittances hit $26.9 billion for last year alone, higher than the $25.61 billion recorded during the previous year.
No less than President Rodrigo Duterte acknowledged the important role of OFWs in the country’s economy during his extemporaneous speech at the anniversary of a television program for overseas Filipinos held last Wednesday night. Although self-confessed in being challenged about the subject of economics, President Duterte cited OFW remittances fuel much of the growth in the gross national product (GNP) of the country every year.
This is why, the President pointed out, his administration has been making sure our OFWs get better treatment, especially when they come home to visit and rejoin their families here in the Philippines. “I’m sure that when you came in, no more inspections of the bag, and you know, getting things there… I disallowed that already. I mean, you are all comfortable,” the President told his audience composed largely of the OFWs.
Surely, it will enrage President Duterte to know that his administration’s efforts to reward OFWs with better government services are not delivered to the fullest extent allowed by laws. Despite the law that grants exemptions for balikbayan boxes and allows OFWs to send three boxes a year up to P450,000 worth, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) issued its implementing rules and regulations (IRR) that limited this only to P150,000 per year.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, a co-author of this law approved by the previous 16th Congress, found out to his dismay about the IRR during the congressional oversight committee meeting with Customs officials last week. Angara attended the meeting in his capacity as current chairman of the powerful Senate ways and means committee.
A new set of rules on balikbayan boxes – Customs Administrative Order (CAO) 05-2016 – took effect on August 1, 2017. The new regulations were issued by the BOC to implement provisions of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) or Republic Act No. 10863, which was signed into law in May 2016. The CMTA updated many of the provisions of the old Balikbayan Box Law that removed customs duties on personal goods sent home by OFWs.
Originally, the CMTA increased the ceiling on the value of tax-free personal items that can be sent via balikbayan boxes to P450,000 from P10,000. As intended by this law, the increase in the value of minimum goods subject to import duties lessens the discretion of Customs officials to inspect goods and impose taxes that most of the times were the causes of corruption.
Sen. Angara fumed after he found the Customs IRR was short-changing our OFWs against the intent and the spirit of the CMTA law.
Attending our weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay breakfast forum at Cafe Adriatico in Remedios Circle in Malate, Angara expressed displeasure at how the Customs Bureau came up with the IRR that did not even comply with the full amount provided for by the law. Thus, Angara noted wryly that the Customs Bureau deprived our OFWs the small amount of tax exemption privilege, but allowed P6.4 billion worth of shabu to slip through under its watch.
According to him, the Customs officials reassured them to make the necessary corrections after castigating them about this IRR during their meeting. An attached agency of the Department of Finance (DOF), the Customs Bureau was principally mandated by the CMTA to draft the IRR in consultations with other government agencies concerned and various stakeholders that include groups of OFWs.
Sen. Angara is braving odds in carrying out the torch for the controversial tax measures and the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) being pushed by the administration of President Duterte. The 45-year-old Senator who also chairs the Senate committee on local governments, will have to defend the proposed bills on Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) and the BBL, respectively.
Despite being up for re-election for a second term of office in the coming 2019 mid-term elections, Angara naturally will have to take the bullets from vested interest groups out to block the TRAIN bill and the BBL. And he is not even a member of the ruling PDP-Laban party of President Duterte.
However, Sen. Angara is part of the “super majority” in the 17th Congress that installed Senate president Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III who happens to be the PDP-Laban president. Thus, it is not far-fetched that Angara will be drafted in the common Senate ticket that Pimentel earlier bared being reserved for re-electionist Senators.
Sen. Angara is the last of the mohicans so to speak among the LDP (Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino). He and his father, the former senate president Edgardo Angara, and aunt, Aurora Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, are the remaining LDP in the 17th Congress and a few other LDP among mayors in Aurora, the home province of the Angaras.
Incidentally, the elder Angara is back in the political scene after President Duterte appointed him as special envoy to the European Union (EU). The elder Angara took up the cudgels for President Duterte who angrily castigated EU parliamentarians for meddling into affairs of the State while here on a visit to detained Sen. Leila de Lima.
Father and son are both ardent believers and strong advocates of party system that they could only wish to be institutionalized in the Philippines to put an end to political butterflies shifting parties for convenience.