Tongues wag again
after FVR warning

Most consider him already a wash-out. But former President Fidel V. Ramos still wields a tremendous clout. Which was the reason why tongues started dishing out speculations post his call for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to cut short her six-year term during his address before the Makati Business Club Wednesday.

He also reminded GMA to subsume her personal goals to that of the national interest.

"The higher the position, the greater the sacrifice," he said, adding that part of this was "giving up a part of your elected term of office."

Now them are dire warnings. In short, FVR is virtually telling GMA that even he has lost his patience with her waffling on the issue of term of office. Although that still calls for a constitutional change and a change in the form of government, still that virtually amounted to a call for resignation, albeit coached in civilized terms.

But there is one other disturbing development. Then are rumors that Surigao Congressman S. Pichay has already wrapped up the votes of some 63 members in a bid to oust Speaker Jose de Venecia. This was speedily denied by Rep. Boy Nograles. But that itself does not negate the possibility that there is some truth to the report.

The reason? Rep. R. Puno, KAMPI head, has been agitating for two seats to be allotted to the KAMPI in the Commission on Appointments. That, per se, is a destabilizing issue for the House leadership since that could trigger a major revamp of the chairmanship of commission.

Ramos also categorized his support for GMA as "driven mainly by a lack of acceptable alternative." In short, that support "thus far, is only secondary and incidental to the absence of a better alternative from the Makati Business Club, the Mangement Association of the Philippines and the Finance Executives Institute of the Philippines".

One can immediately glean from that that FVR requesting the three groups to come forward with an alternative to GMA.

As a final gesture, FVR also warned that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo "must reform herself."

In short, FVR must have noted the plummeting acceptability of GMA in survey polls and the deteriorating situation of the government in the face of persistent rallies calling for her resignation.

While these continuous calls for presidential resignation may not be able to topple her from power, nevertheless it continues to erode public credibility of the government and questions her ability to cope with governance.

If those words came from any other, they could have justified a heated counterattack from Malacañang. But from Ramos, who has been credited with saving GMA last time when the Hyatt 10 resigned en masse from the Cabinet, must be taken seriously.

Coming for a psywar expert, "them are troubling words."

***

Reynaldo Bantug, national president of the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations Inc., and Negros-Panay chapter chair Luis Tongoy are calling Negrenses and sugar industry leaders to support the move of Senator Richard Gordon to suspend the implementation of e-VAT on power and fuel. The advocate for a similar move is Senator Manuel (Mar) Roxas who points out that the levy of e-VAT on these two major prime commodities could lead to an irretrievable hike in the prices of basic commodities.

Joe Montinola, Confed Panay-Negros trustee, explained his support for the Gordon compromise formula. The e-vat on fuel and power is across the board. It means that an increase in the cost of fuel and power will definitely trigger an upward hike in transportation, manufacturing and other inputs. Especially for agriculture.

For one, Montinola explained yesterday, there will be an automatic hike in the cost of transporting cut canes to the mills. And, although exempt from VAT, raw sugar production cost will rise with the increased price of fertilizers. Then, there will be the additional refining and transport costs.

On the other hand, Montinola argued, taxing text messages actually does not hurt people much. Why? Because most of the text messages that have been crowding the cellular phone lines are actually not emergency or important messages. Most of these can be done away with by the cellular phone callers.

Yet, as pointed out by Bantug, the expected income from revenues in taxes on text messages could generate more than the expected P60 billion from e-VAT on fuel and power. Gordon estimated that the text messages tax could generate as much as P80 to P90 billion per annum. Enough to fund the construction of more school buildings, fund the program to mentor the mentors, and additional projects that could improve the chances of the country's youth to land the better paying jobs not only abroad but even domestically. In short, it is a doable thing. And Congress must heed the call for the compromise formula espoused by Gordon and Roxas.

Well, we hope President GMA heeds the more sober minds among her allies. Before the roof falls on her head on November 1.*

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