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MANILA, Philippines - President Benigno Aquino III should flex his muscle and convince lawmakers to support the bill raising taxes on cigarettes and alcoholic drinks before they wrap up the 15th Congress by July, a former finance secretary said.
Margarito Teves, the Department of Finance (DOF) chief during the Arroyo administration, said the vote for House Bill 5727 authored by Rep. _Joseph Emilio Abaya of Cavite has to reach a “comfortable level” as soon as possible.
“I think what I gather is we only have 10 votes,” Teves told InterAksyon.com on the sidelines of the Atok-Big Wedge Co. annual stockholders' meeting.
“It really depends on how strong the President manifests his support for the bill. I think there’s a big margin of difference if the President would be able to manifest his support,” the former DOF chief said.
Teves was one of former senior government officials who signed a manifesto in support of HB 5727.
Lawmakers have a narrow window to pass the bill in the House of Representatives and elevate it to the Senate before the 15th Congress draws to a close in July.
“It’s tight in a sense that the Senate is very much involved with the impeachment. But I think it is important to have at least one leg, and that is the House making a decision on it,” Teves said.
The Senate is in the thick of impeachment hearings on Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.
“If the House can approve it even at the committee level or ideally at the plenary level, so by the time Senate is done with the impeachment, it can tackle the bill in the following session in late July. The window is not that large because they would still have to work on the budget,” Teves said.
He said the problem with the present timetable is that the backers of HB 5727 do not know whether the senators would adopt the House version of the bill.
The proposed legislation collapses the tiered taxation of the old system, hikes the levies on tobacco and alcoholic drinks, and allocates the proceeds of the tax for the benefit of the Department of Health.
The pro-tobacco lobby in the House led by Rep. Eric Singson Jr. of the second district of Ilocos Sur has filed an alternative bill aimed at keeping the status quo.
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