‘Poisonous gift’

Letters

ALMOST a month since the Duterte administration implemented its much-hyped Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law, we express serious alarm over the Train effects. It is rapidly plunging workers and poor families deeper into poverty and precariousness.

The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) points out that instead of bringing relief, the new tax measure added more burden to workers long been suffering from meager wages and job insecurity.  Workers randomly interviewed complained to CTUHR of further belt-tightening to cope with rocketing prices of basic goods and commodities.

A factory worker in narrated that a P10 small bowl of lugaw (porridge) she eats for lunch used to be enough for her, now she has to spend P20 because P10 can only pay for half bowl now.

Small-store owners also complain of profit reduction yet afraid to adjust their prices as they may end up losing customers. People are also troubled by the looming surge on transportation fares and electricity rates due to higher tax on oil products.

Another said he used to spend P161 for four liters of gas to cover for four days travel to work and back by motorbike. Now he is spending P166 and its only for three days.

These responses speak how the Train severely affects the poor in general. What the Train has accomplished so far, is to simply and effectively widen the gap between daily income and high cost of living. The tax reform makes it more difficult for workers even in the formal sector to get by with the value of  their meager wages shrink amidst soaring prices of basic goods. Instead of legislating a substantial wage hike long been demanded by workers, Duterte administration passed a higher consumption taxes hitting the poor more while ensuring bigger profits for oligarchs and corporations and to its grandiose and big-ticket infrastructure projects. To say that the Train is his biggest gift to Filipinos shows a gross disregard to the real plight of the poor majority. It’s a poisonous gift.

Data from government and Ibon Foundation show that 7.5 million individuals with annual earnings of P250,000 who purportedly stand to benefit from lower personal income tax is only half of the 15.2 million minimum-wage earners. They and low-income families bear the brunt of Train-triggered price increases with no income tax gains. The Ibon study shows that the richest 10 percent with average earning of P104,107 monthly will get an additional P90,793 annually while the middle income and lower-middle income families will have P7,880 to P24,343 additional take home pay. On the other hand, the poorest 60% or 13.7 million families will have to shoulder P600-P2000 additional expense.

We challenge the administration’s neoliberal economic managers to prove that the tax law will have minimal impact and benefits the poor when prices of everything and transactions except wages are rocketing.

We emphasize an urgent need for a legislated national across-the-board wage hike not the P200 subsidy the government plans to give to the poor. This is so painfully infuriating, to borrow the word from government economic managers, Train gets so much from the poor, and when the poor complains, they offer crumbs to keep them quiet. Change has indeed come, but not in favor of the poor majority. It is understandable and worthy of support when the poor goes out to the streets to say we do not need the Train that does not only malfunction, but also brings us to a living suffering. –Daisy Arago, executive director, Center for Trade Union and Human Rights

‘Tokhang Resurrected’

WITH the new supposedly law-upholding and rightsespecting guidelines for a relaunch, the glaring truth that the bloody and brutal Tokhang Operations under the Duterte administration exceeded the rule of law and violated basic human rights is confirmed. This acknowledgement by police and government authorities themselves is easily matched by the now blossomed reference of being “Tokhanged” under Duterte’s so-called “War on Drugs;” Filipinos do not use this phrase to describe a pastoral intervention, counsel or warning—such is already colloquialism that a person has been or will be rubbed out, executed, or killed (by the police/suspected state agents). Seeking to sanitize the image of this excessively tarnished police method is likely intended to resume the PNP’s ability to rule by fear in poor communities, while neutralizing public criticism.  Operation Tokhang by PNP agents should not be resurrected.

First and foremost, Duterte’s so-called “War on Drugs” has falsely equated corrective action with brutal bloodshed. Under the complex causes of illegal-drug use and trade in the Philippines, the Duterte administration should address poverty and inadequate employment which foster and create conditions that propel people toward illegal drug activities.  If this were the administration’s focus, a significant portion of small-time sellers or users would rectify their conduct.

Police actions have instead sought to threaten, bully, and yes, eliminate supposed offenders from urban-poor communities through staged and easily engaged shootouts, the planting of evidence when none is found, and forcing supposed suspects to relocate or risk assassination.  Even more, rather than turning users into state witnesses against peddlers, peddlers into witnesses against suppliers, suppliers into witnesses against distributers and cooks, and all of these into state witnesses against drug kingpins and syndicate bosses, the Philippine National Police have proven themselves abundantly eager to gun-down the economically poor, petty-criminals while conveniently and consistently overlooking big-time drug personalities.

The job of the police is to uphold the law, by issuing onsite warnings, gathering evidence, making arrests of people caught in the act of a crime, and filing cases—social and health workers are the correct professions to facilitate access to government treatment services for drug-dependence, while local community leaders and barangay officials can assist with counsel and family support.  These may all be done in compliance and coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.  The SNAFU that is Operation Tokhang lies in the misuse of police.  PNP officers don’t present themselves as service providers through “KNOCK and PLEAD.”  They have always been threatening people with consequences, if they don’t surrender.  As such, they portray themselves with undue power to exercise discretion on the filing of any case and often over-project the evidence that they really have, leaving little recourse for any suspect to clear their name.  Under Operation Tokhang, killings and assassinations frequently followed.  In arrogating to themselves responsibilities that rightly belong with a fiscal or the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency on one hand and social/health workers and community leaders on the other, the Philippine National Police stepped brazenly into an atmosphere that allowed them to overstep due process and the rule of law.

These latest Operation Tokhang guidelines exist precisely because of excesses and violations of human rights and the rule of law in months past. The new guidelines will likely intensify cover-up of misdeeds as PNP commanding officers are now to be removed from their positions and subjected to reassignment (referred to as “sacked”) for the actions of those under them.  These guidelines seek to whitewash what had been happening with a fresh coat of legitimacy and further normalize on police bullying and threats.  If police have evidence against a suspect, they should follow the rule of law and let the courts sort it out.

Operation Tokhang has buried many Filipinos already.  Persons entitled to a day in court may have redeemed themselves through such processes.  They may have even proven that allegations against them were without merit. Instead, too many such persons have been denied due process and “Tokhanged.”  Their right to life cannot be restored to them.  In this same vein, a positive reputation for the PNP’s Operation Tokhang will not easily be restored; thus, Operation Tokhang should not be resurrected, as it still drips with the blood of the poor ones, the thousands extra-judicially killed under Duterte’s “War on Drugs.” –Fr. Gilbert Billena, O.Carm, spokesperson, Rise Up for Rights and for Life