Today’s text tax proposal is hideous, unintelligent and insulting to everyone. Speaker Prospero Nograles, Senator Richard Gordon and Finance Secretary Margarito Teves should be ashamed of themselves that they even entertained the idea of a tax even as the entire world are looking for ways to avert economic disasters, both personal and national.

Nograles and Gordon sing the same tune, claiming that their proposal is no text tax, but focuses on the telcos’ profits. They say that they just wish to get 20 percent of telcos’ profits from texting services, deposit them to a trust account to be overseen by industry representatives, and appropriated to the noble goal of building more schools, among others.

The proponents are not honest and forthright to the Filipino people.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO ASSURANCE THAT THE TELCOS WON’T PASS ON THIS NEW TAX TO CONSUMERS. We weren’t born yesterday, and besides, the Arroyo government has no pro-consumer track record to speak of.  If we fall to the trap that Nograles and Gordon have laid before us and believe them for even one second that we won’t be affected, the milking won’t stop. There may not be a commensurate increase in text rates but there are countless ways for the telcos to pass on the levy to all of us.

PRESIDENT ARROYO PROUDLY PROCLAIMED LOW TEXT RATES ONLY TO THREATEN TO RAISE THEM NOW THROUGH A TEXT TAX. In her last state of the nation address, Arroyo said that she talked telcos into lowering text rates to just 50-centavos apiece. It was baloney then (because one has to pay P20 first as registration to be able to enjoy 50-centavos per text rates, and for a limited time only), and it looks even worse now. If Arroyo truly shares the Filipinos’ view that texting is important, her administration and their congressional allies should instead work towards lowering the rates and not cause a price hike.

ANY NEW TAX OR LEVY IS DOUBLE TAXATION. These officials do not admit that text messages and cellphone calls, as well as purchases of new cellphones, are already slapped with the 12 percent value-added taxes. Each time we buy prepaid load or pay postpaid bills, the government gets a 12 percent cut. International calls and text messages meanwhile are also slapped an overseas communications tax — so there goes the government’s backhanded tribute to overseas Filipino workers whose families use cellphones to keep in close touch with them.

HOW IS THE GOVERNMENT BUDGETING, USING AND LIQUIDATING PUBLIC FUNDS? Everywhere we go, we pay taxes. Whether we are employed or jobless, we pay high taxes, courtesy of President Arroyo’s favorite VAT. Until this year, even minimum wage earners were compelled to part ways with a sizable portion of their hard-earned wages to support this government. Now, the question is, how does the government spend all these revenues they exact from the people?

For 2009, President Arroyo submitted a P1.4 trillion budget and she promised that it is now time for the people to be rewarded after years of paying high taxes. She said that the 2009 budget will put a premium on health, education, roads, etc. The proposal to use a new text tax to purportedly fund the building of new schools betrays the low or inadequate funding given to education. If it is really important for Nograles and Gordon, they should have given education an appropriate amount for 2009 — but they obviously didn’t and would like us to believe now that the answer is this text tax.

Can’t Arroyo allocate half of her P835.97 billion pork for 2009 to education and health?  Why prioritize defense spending for instance and not reallocate this huge amount to more productive services?