BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon
BAGUIO CITY -- The Cordillera Peoples Alliance, added its
voice to many sectors calling for the scrapping of TRAIN 2 saying it will worsen
indigenous peoples' plight. On Sept. 10, the Lower House approved on final
reading TRAIN 2, or House Bill 8083 also known as “Tax reform for
attracting better and high quality opportunities (TRABAHO Bill).”
TRAIN 2 proponents said
it will bring down corporate income taxes from 30 percent to 20%, grant
additional benefits to corporations and reward tax incentives to
potential investors.
“Duterte’s TRAIN 2 will only benefit the oligarchs and
foreign corporations while bleeding the poor people dry with more taxes
and turning the plight of indigenous peoples from bad to worse,” the
militant groups said in a statement.
The CPA assailed approval
of TRAIN 2 in what it called the “Duterte-controlled House of Representatives
led by the newly-installed House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.” calling
it a “ruthless attempt to worsen the plight of indigenous peoples and
poor majority of the Filipino population.”
According to CPA chairperson
Windel Bolinget, "this is an outright treachery to the poor majority
of Filipinos who have been devastated by the TRAIN 1 implementation and
will only benefit oligarchs and foreign corporations.
“As the first two
instalments of Duterte’s tax reforms, TRAIN 1 and 2 is a twin attack
against poor and marginalized indigenous peoples while serving the wealthy
few, with additional perks and benefits given to them on a silver platter.
It is a means to generate massive government income through peoples' taxes
to fund the ambitious build-build-build program of the administration,
the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and other
military and defence spending, and to pay ballooning foreign loans.
"Indigenous peoples
bear the brunt of Duterte's tax reform program. The sky-high prices of
prime commodities such as rice and other food products, rising costs of
transportation brought about by the excise
taxes on petroleum products was a result of the TRAIN 1
implementation.
Inflation rose to 6.4 %,
the highest in almost a decade, while wages of ordinary workers
(P320-PhP330 in the Cordillera region) remain constantly way below the
family living wage of P1,175.”
Research group IBON estimates that one in
every four Filipinos (25%) remain unemployed or underemployed. The
country’s foreign debts rose to more than P7 trillion as a result,”
Bolinget said.
"TRAIN will not
bring food on the tables of ordinary Filipinos, especially the
marginalized indigenous peoples whose ancestral lands, natural resources
and livelihood sources are constantly threatened by
destructive projects and militarization of communities. It
will not solve the country's chronic poverty brought about by joblessness,
low wages, contractualization and unfair labor practices, and
insufficient or lack of access to basic social services. Instead, it will
make situations worse by further opening-up our country to plunderous
and
greedy corporations who make profits out of our natural
resources and the desperate conditions of workers,” said Bolinget.
Bolinget also said that
large foreign-owned corporations already enjoy tax holidays and similar
incentives in so-called export processing zones or special economic zones
and mining projects but Filipino workers remain hostage to slave-wages
and unsafe conditions of work.
He said TRAIN 2 is
a go-signal to large mining and energy corporations to further plunder our
natural resources and our people.
“With TRAIN 2, more
private companies and transnational corporations will target the
Cordillera and other ancestral lands of indigenous peoples for resource
extraction and plunder.”
At present, more than
100 various mining applications are reportedly under process in the
Cordillera including AFTA 008 of CEXCI-Nickel Asia which covers 43,000
hectares of ancestral lands.
There are also 87
hydro-power projects reportedly awarded by Dept. of Energy, the majority
of which are owned by energy giant SN Aboitiz which has Norwegian
investment thru Statkraft and the Norwegian
Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund).
“Instead of bleeding the
people dry from massive taxation, the government
should seriously pursue a program of national industrialization founded
on genuine agrarian reform to create jobs and maintain a self-sufficient
and sustainable local economy.
“The prevailing neoliberal
policies on the economy favoring large, private and foreign corporations will
only worsen the condition of ordinary Filipinos who are desperately
seeking jobs and are being forced to get employment abroad. But the
Duterte regime has proven itself to be a lapdog of foreign corporations
and local oligarchs which is why it continues to inflict misery to
ordinary people and heightened national oppression of
indigenous peoples.”
The CPA urged the Senate
to junk the TRAIN law.
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