Running after smugglers

Faced with a looming fiscal deficit due to higher spending amid economic slowdown this year, the 20th Congress will start to look into “revenue leakages” in the government, whether due to corruption or weak enforcement of the laws of the land.

- MARICHU A. VILLANUEVA

As the originating body of tax and other revenue-raising laws, the House of Representatives vows to take these initiatives to support the P6.793-trillion budget that they in the 20th Congress approved for this year. Signed into law by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM), the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA) will have about P1 trillion to be partly funded by new borrowings.

And perhaps new revenue-raising measures but not imposing new taxes, Marikina City Rep. Miro Quimbo, chairman of the House committee on ways and means, reassured the public during our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last Wednesday. The primary job of Congress, Quimbo stressed, is not only to pass the budget but also to look for sources to finance the National Expenditure Program (NEP) contained in the annual GAA.

In fact, he cited, 70 percent of the national budget is sourced from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the rest are from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and others. “When deficit increases, our borrowings also increase. When borrowings increase, we are having difficulties in financing our programs,” he pointed out. As such, the country’s national budget is highly dependent on tax and duty collections of the government and foreign borrowings.

“But more significantly, what happens is when the country has huge increase in borrowings, the interest rates also rise. When the cost of borrowings of the government increases, the borrowings of the ordinary citizens also rise. This means the borrowings for cars, for credit cards, all of that will also increase. So, it is important that we fix our (fiscal) deficit,” Quimbo explained.