“After all, while pursuing the case against Viking Haulers may give the Boca some headlines, does it actually have a case that it can win?”
Perhaps, the old way of doing things where the President started his term on January 1 of the year after the November elections was the better way to go instead of the present system where we begin a new administration mid-year on July 1. But, it is long past the time when things ought to be as they ought to be.
Now, we begin the term of an administration on July 1 and end it on June 30 six years later.
Sadly, now it seems now like June 30, 2006 seems a long way off.
Noynoy Aquino’s time as President now seems like too long a time for a presidency that may produce not much in relations to other presidencies that produced too little to matter.
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When one pays what it owes government, one expects that the payment ends one’s obligations. Why is it that now it seems as though that what one has paid for vehicles brought in through the Bureau of Customs (BoC) on which were paid taxes, as computed by BoC personnel, were apparently less than what had to be paid. But, who could tell you how much you had to pay if not the BoC personnel themselves?
This is the situation that an independent car importer finds himself in, although in reality he is paying even more than what other luxury car importers are paying the BoC on their car importations.
But, how do these importers know how much they are supposed to pay? BoC personnel tell them how much they should pay. When their shipments come in, they are told the amounts they are supposed to pay. Thus, when they pay the amounts that are told them, they can bring their imported cars out of the BoC area and register their imported cars with the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
Thus, I cannot see how the BoC can now say that Viking Haulers, which has been in existence for several years now, can be accused of not paying the proper taxes when what an importer pays is whatever the BoC personnel tell them to pay.
Besides, someone in Viking Haulers tells me that they actually pay more than what other importers (PGA Cars, Prestige Cars and others) are paying on their importations of these luxury car importers.
Why is the BoC picking on a small imported car importer rather than the larger ones considering that the smaller importer is actually (according to them) paying even more than the other larger importers?
There was a time when those dealing in imported cars never paid any taxes on their importations. They would get people with permits to import cars for being in the diplomatic service to own the importations; these would then be sold to buyers who would not have to pay any import taxes since the cars would be registered under the names of the diplomats. (Of course, the diplomats would have to be paid for their acquiescence.) Eventually, under one of the previous BoC Commissioners, a modus Vivendi was worked out whereby the people in this business were allowed to bring in these luxury cars under affordable tax rates even as the more expensive official tax rates were still in place.
I am not suggesting anything, Our new BoC personnel should be allowed to do what they think is best; but, shouldn’t they also look at what the previous BoC Commissioners did before immediately upsetting the applecart that has been in use for sometime?
After all, while pursuing the case against Viking Haulers may give the BoC some headlines, does it actually have a case that it can win?
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I am saddened by the bad press that the P’Noy administration has been getting primarily from the botched handling of the hostage situation of last week. The fact is that this administration will (from al indications) be an honest one where not a single centavo will find itself in corrupt official’s pockets. One keeps hoping that it will remain this way.
At the same time, one realizes that a government that does not deliver what the masa needs has no chance of finishing its term, Another realization that just one clean P’Noy administration is not enough to change the way that the Philippines operates.
We need a series of Presidents (who are clean) to change the way that the rest of us (and the government) do our things.
To be able to do what needs doing P’Noy must remain a popular force to the end of his term so that he will be a factor in who we will choose for our next president. Then, that President must also keep his mandate to the end of his term in 2018. We need about five Presidents who will be honest and clean before we can effect a change in how we operate and do things. That is the reality.
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Perhaps, it is time for P’Noy to speak to all of us about corruption and how this has affected the way we do things. Clearly, the Manila Police treated the hostage taker with kid gloves because he was one of them. This is corruption, too, when a criminal is treated with deference because he is or was one of them even when clearly the hostage-taker was doing a continuing criminal act. He ought to have been shot when he showed himself alone and an easy target.
P’Noy should say that corruption must be ended and that he is committing himself to this. Some have suggested that P’Noy (if he does this) may not live to see the end of our widespread corruption, that someone will pay to have him assassinated. I, on the other hand, am more optimistic, believing that the rest of us want to see an end to the way that things were done in previous administrations.
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