Haresco reiterates national need to adopt DOF plan to solve economic crisis

Economist-congressman Rep. Teodorico Haresco, Jr. of Aklan’s 2nd district on Friday reiterated the need to adopt the Fiscal Consolidation and Resource Mobilization Plan of the past administration’s Department of Finance (DOF) to address the country’s economic crisis marred by challenges brought about by the pandemic, inflation, and outstanding national debt.

“The needs of the times require the government to prioritize seeking additional sources of revenue to pay off national debt and finance its programs. This can be made possible through a fiscal robustness strategy focused on refocusing our current tax laws and revenue collection,” Haresco said.

The veteran legislator endorsed the 2022 Fiscal Consolidation and Resource Mobilization Plan released by the Duterte administration’s DOF led by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III.

The said plan seeks to modify and supplement existing tax laws for more effective and efficient revenue collection. Among its salient points include: the deferment of the TRAIN personal income tax reduction; modifications to the Value-Added Tax (VAT) system; additional excise taxes; expansion of health and sin taxes; admission charges for casinos and imposing gaming taxon electronic betting; carbon emissions and cryptocurrency taxes; and, the expansion of tax administration to include social media influencers.

In a press statement earlier, new Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said he aims to tackle the country’s economic problem by focusing on growth and tax management, stating that the challenge for the government is to ensure that “our growth must be higher than interest payments to creditors.”

Inflation rate in the country reached a three-year high with 6.1 percent for June 2022, brought by higher annual growth rate in the prices of food, beverages, and other basic commodities, as reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Rep. Haresco concurs with Finance Secretary Diokno and is confident the President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.’s economics-finance team are most highly experienced and familiar with proverbial rough roads towards the implementation of a fiscal consolidation and resource mobilization plan.