“(W)hy charge us a tax on something we never bought or used and which Meralco lost because it does not have a secure system. Thus, we are being taxed for Meralco’s inefficiencies. How fair is that?”
by Ducky Paredes
Sen. Chiz Escudero makes sense when he says that there should be no Value-Added Tax imposed on the charges that the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) puts in our electric bills as “systems loss.”
Escudero who is the chairman of the Senate Ways and Means committee, explains that “systems loss” comes from other people’s illegal power line connections, which loss is charged to us paying customers.
Escudero says: “VAT is supposed to be a levy on goods and services, on tangibles one receives and enjoys, not on imaginary things like electricity which has vaporized or been vandalized.”
The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) imposes a 7.8 percent system loss on monthly billings to residential consumers. Says Chiz: “It is bad enough that we end up paying for electricity that is lost to illegal connections ‘and to heat,’ but coughing up with an additional 12 percent tax on phantom power is too much.”
Can one impose a VAT on something that Meralco lost which it charges everyone of its customers pro-rate, according to how high one’s usage of power is? Chiz sees the VAT on systems loss as a tax on theft. Escudero says that, in this case, the victim of the theft pays a tax on what he lost. “But he does not pay only for the actual cost of what had been stolen from him; he becomes a victim twice over when he pays, by some weird logic, a 12 percent tax on the reimbursement he pays on behalf of the thief.”
I see it as even worse since you and I as Meralco customers never lost anything. It was Meralco that lost the power that it purchased and which was not purchased but disappeared. So, why charge us that and – we ask the government – why charge us a tax on something we never bought or used and which Meralco lost because it does not have a secure system.
Thus, we are being taxed for Meralco’s inefficiencies. How fair is that?
In reality this is built into every power franchise. What bugs the government about this is that Meralco, the largest power distributor, also has the largest systems losses at close to eight percent. While paying this may hurt, what hurts even more is why we are paying VAT on this item, which is something we never used.
In fact, as one jaded old man asked when reading his Meralco bill: “Why are we paying for missionaries? I thought we did that in church?”
(If you did not get that, look at your Meralco bill – closely, item by item.)
* * *
An Australian doctor sees the problem that dialysis patients have in Australia. More than 1,800 of them are waiting for kidney transplants; yet, in 2007, only 343 kidneys were donated. In fact, the average wait in Australia for a kidney is four years.
So, Kidney specialist Gavin Carney proposes that the government pay up to $47,000 Australian (P1,868,954.52) for kidney donations. That should take care of the shortage. If what did that here, it would surely work, too.
Of course, there are those who oppose this. The basic objection is that people should not be allowed to market their organs and that if one did his it would be exploiting the poor who would be the ones who would sell a kidney for that kind of money.
But, let’s look at this dispassionately. We actually pay for blood donations, don’t we? The amounts may not be as high as they are for kidneys but amounts are paid for donated blood – so many pesos for so many pints. So, why not a price for kidneys that the government will pay donors?
A system where one is allowed to donate something when it comes from the bottom of one’s heart will work only if the recipients also will reciprocate the donor’s charity with their own and also from the bottom of their hearts meaning that they will more than match the donation. What would be ideal is one where donors and recipients become part of a community where, after the transplant, the recipients will go out of their way to help the donors and their families in their economic and other problems.
A recipient could find a job for a donor’s daughter or son or take care of the education of a donor’s child or even include a donor’s family in his health plan or help them get a new home, a cavan of rice every month or some such thing. In reality, the donor gave the recipient something that the recipient can never repay – his health. So, why not be generous, too.
That is one way. But the suggestion of Dr. Carney is also another way of doing this. The government rewards those who would donate something of themselves for others, As in blood donations, there is a monetary reward. Why not for kidneys?
“I don’t support (illegal trade),” Carney said. “But I also do not agree with the fact that we should let people just rot on dialysis until they have been on dialysis so long they are untransplantable.”
That Aussie doctor talks a lot of sense.
* * *
As long as the Church allows the Santacruzan to become a contest of make-up, dresses and money, it cannot be a proper devotion to Our Lady. That gays will dress themselves in expensive finery, hire the best-looking boys to squire them seems only fitting. Do the other sagalas actually think of Our Lady and of giving her honor and devotion or as they more interested in impressing the crowd about the worth of their dress and their crown.
Who march in these processions? The richest families in town. Is that what the Church has become? Why condemn the gays for wanting to join this farce. The Santacruzan stopped being one that honors Our Lady a long time ago. Unless it can evolve into a form that makes sense as a procession to Our Lady, it actually ought to be thrown into the garbage bin of history.
# # # #
hvp 05.07.08)
Post a Comment