Legacy to behold

EDITORIAL

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07/20/2008

Now its official. Gloria has become history’s most unwanted president, a distinction that may even qualify her in the Guinness book of world records.

The latest survey of the Social Weather Station (SWS) showed that 60 percent of a representative of the country’s population rejected Gloria as the country’s leader, with a mere 22 percent made up mostly of her friends, cabal and associates, and some of her relatives, expressing the view that she is acceptable.

Gloria being despised by most Filipinos is an old story, however. What is new in the survey was that her satisfaction rating dropped the most among the middle and upper classes of the society, the section of the nation which supposedly tilts the balance whether or not the country’s president stays in power.

The survey showed that Gloria’s acceptability to the A, B and C classes dropped perilously with 59 percent of respondents dissatisfied and only 22 percent giving Gloria a passing mark for a net rating of negative 37, which was even lower than her negative 35 net rating with the class D sector or the so-called masa.

Also a first in the latest survey was that Gloria was evenly rejected in all corners of the country with a dissatisfaction rating of 63 percent in Metro Manila, 60 percent the rest of Luzon, 56 in the Visayas and 62 percent in Mindanao.

Where once Gloria found consolation in 36 percent approval in the Visayas, that is also now lost with only 23 percent saying they still approve of Gloria and her performance.

Predictably, Malacañang attributed Gloria’s unheard of record to the “hard decisions” she had to make supposedly as the country’s leader, one of which was keeping the value added tax (VAT) tagged on fuel that is keeping its prices sky high.

Such a decision, however, is an easy way out instead of what is expected from a true leader. The windfall in revenue collections from the VAT on oil is what is keeping Gloria from removing it on the essential commodity.

Windfall means unexpected revenues or that which is over and above what the government forecast after the prices of oil shot to a peak of $147 per barrel from the level of about $60 to $70 per barrel in 2006 when the expanded value added tax (eVAT) was imposed.

This means that Gloria can do away with genuine reforms for now such as improving the collection efficiency of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs as a result of the collection windfall from oil products.

Most of Gloria’s decisions were anyway in the mold of an easy way out. She pushed the approval of the eVAT law as an easy way out from a fiscal crisis that she herself had created.

The crisis happened due to the growing inability of government revenue agencies, mainly the BIR and the Customs, to hit targets mainly as a result of corruption in the agencies and tax evasion.

The solution applied was to expand the coverage of the sales tax to previously exempt essential commodities such as oil and power and later on expanding the tax to 12 percent from a previous 10 percent.

The negative 38 record rejection level on Gloria is not expected to last long, however, as the next survey is expected to give Gloria further ignominy.

What she did lately was to slice up the country just to keep Muslim secessionists who cannot even claim representation for the whole Muslim sector of the society quiet.

Gloria is giving away aside from the Autonomous Region in Muslim in Mindanao, North Cotabato, Zamboanga, Zamboanga-Sibugay and Palawan to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is not the only secessionist front in Mindanao since there is also Nur Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front.

Gloria, thus, has not seen the end of her plunge in acceptability with her continuous sell out decisions and policies.

Just wait for the next survey.

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