MANILA, Philippines — Vice presidential candidates on Saturday proposed several solutions on how to remove corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
Speaking at the vice presidential debate hosted by CNN Philippines, the vice presidential hopefuls presented measures such as digitalization and judicial process reforms as possible solutions.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Dr. Willie Ong and economist Manny Lopez have agreed that a digitalization of the tax collection system is the key to solve the systemic corruption in the BIR.
“Digitalization, that is the answer,” Sotto said.
“We remove human intervention, we remove corruption, and we improve the collection of taxes,” he added.
Ong echoed Sotto’s remarks: “Tama naman po ang sinabi ni Senator Tito Sotto, Kailangan i-computerize, alisin ang usap sa tao-tao, pwede natin i-simplify, yung pagbayad ng tax.”
“E-governance, as the good Senate president has mentioned, is a part of our legislative and executive agenda, to improve efficiency in tax collection,” Lopez added.
Lopez also stressed the need to improve the government’s fiscal policy.
“I think the fiscal side of governance of the country has to improve, and there is a lot of room for improvement.”
Lopez added that the government should also eliminate leakages in the public finance sector.
“There should be better auditing procedures to ensure that every tax collected from the people should be spent wisely.”
For his part, Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan said a swift judicial process could help solve the systemic corruption in the tax agency.
“You have to punish swiftly the guilty,” he said.
Pangilinan said that the country needs more judges, noting that 25 percent of the courts in the country have no judges. He also called for additional courts for swift resolution of tax cases.
It can be recalled that President Rodrigo Duterte said he is keeping an eye on the BIR, in a bid to stem long-standing corruption in the agency.