THE Filipino nation lost a moral giant in the fight against corruption, and an intellectual force and brilliant legal mind in Philippine politics. As a nation, we are poorer today by former Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s passing. In this difficult time, we mourn with her family and share our fervent prayers as we commend her soul to the Lord Almighty. I remember her in Constitutional Law where I first encountered that wit and fiery rhetoric in the classroom. I worked with her in the Senate, where she lighted up its august halls with her crackling and slashing wit that won her a legion of followers and admirers. While she did not always win her political battles, she always stood on the side of what was moral, what was legal, what was constitutional, and ultimately what was good for the Filipino people. She was the best president our nation never had. Her example will inspire not only many more patriotic Filipino women to go into public service, but countless more of our young who have looked up to her as our moral compass. Rest in peace, our dear senator. -Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, Senate President   What’s the Basis? WE question the basis of the Department of Finance’s (DOF) proposal of tax-exempting only those with an annual salary of P250,000. Where did this figure come from? What is the basis for this? The amount of P250,000 is way below the annual Family Living Wage of a Filipino that is now pegged at P396,390 (or  P1,086.00 daily). Under our proposal (House Bill 333), we use the amount of P396,390 as the minimum figure of tax exemption because this is the basic living salary needed by a family. But as the think tank Ibon Foundation already pointed out the most important tax reform is really to come up with a genuinely progressive program that taxes those few but with a huge ability to pay more while relieving the overwhelming majority who are struggling with such low incomes. The country’s tax system should be designed according to the country’s concrete condition of severe inequality and widespread poverty – not from what is seen as “doable” for being unopposed and supported by the rich and by big corporations. Some 17 million Filipino families (80% of all families) earn at most around P20,000 a month; the poorest half (53%) try to live off less than P13,000 a month and the poorest fifth (20%) on an average of less than P5,600 a month. These poor and low income families should not be taxed at all.  On the other hand the country’s richest 326,000 families (1.5% of all families) earn an average of P106,000-P191,000 a month. The CEOs of San Miguel Corporation (SMC), First Philippine Holdings (FPH), Meralco and other big corporations earn P5.0-P5.9 million a month. The  country’s “50 richest oligarchs” have a combined net worth of US$79.5 billion or P3.8 trillion at current exchange rates. There are also at least 690 “ultra high net worth” Filipinos with at least P1.4 billion in assets each. The country’s top 1,000 corporations meanwhile made over P1.1 trillion in combined annual profits and the 265 Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE)-listed firms some P581 billion. These rich families and large corporations benefit the most in the exploitation of our  economy, natural resources and our  cheap labor. It is only just and equitable that they shoulder  a large part in funding the social and other amelioration program of the government. The Ibon study showed that raising income taxes on just the richest 1.5% of Filipino families will not only reduce the extreme inequality in the country but also raise some P91 billion.  Meanwhile, the richest 156,000 or 0.7% of families had a cumulative income of  P356.9 billion in 2012 with an average annual income of Php2,287,836. Taxing just an additional 20% of this income will raise P71 billion. On the other hand, the next richest 170,000 or 0.8% of families had a cumulative income of  P198.4 billion with an average annual income of P1,271,484. Taxing just an additional 10% of this income will raise P20 billion,  the Ibon study said. As we lower personal income for the middle class, higher top personal income tax rates are needed. It will be recalled that these reached as much as 70% in 1973 and 60% in 1982 before being cut to 35% in 1986, 33% in 1999, and finally to 32% in 2000. Higher corporate income tax rates on large corporations are also needed. For instance, restoring the corporate income tax to its 35% rate before 2009 would also immediately raise at least P20-30 billion. Micro, small and medium enterprises should meanwhile be supported with lower income taxes than charged to large corporations. This is aside from how as much as P409 billion more can be raised from aggressive collection of corporate income taxes especially from large corporations. These are just some of our concerns and suggestions to the DOF and we hope that  these  anti-poor taxes will not push through. --Carlos Isagani Zarate, representative, Bayan Muna