President-elect Bongbong Marcos during an interview with Press Secretary-designate Trixie Cruz-Angeles and a group of reporters. Screengrab from Facebook / BBM
MANILA, Philippines — President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday made a pitch for proper collection of taxes and tariffs, saying the economy will languish if the government’s tax collection agencies won’t step up its revenue system.
Speaking in a sit-down interview where only a few select media were present, Marcos said the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) must ensure the proper collection of taxes and duties in order to balance the demand for funds to bankroll government programs.
“The economy of the Philippines will simply not succeed, we cannot collect duties, tariffs, etc through the BOC and we do not have good collection on taxes both on the national and local level. Hindi talaga uubra. The numbers don’t match,” he said.
“So that’s why it’s very, very important and we have to at the very least reduce the corrosive influence of corruption in government as a general rule,” he added.
Marcos’ family has been dogged by issues of nonpayment of their P203 billion estate tax liability, as well as his own failure to file his income tax returns while governor of Ilocos Norte from 1982 to 1985.
During the interview, the President-elect has also refused to discuss past issues of corruption.
“Ah corruption? Kalimutan na lang natin ‘yung nakaraan. Sasabihin natin, ‘Ah sige that’s not under my watch, hindi ako, hindi ako namamahala noon eh. Ngayon ako na namamahala, so wala nang ganyan.”
(Corruption. Let’s just forget about the past. I’ll say, ‘That’s not under my administration. Now that it’s my administration, corruption will have no place.’)
But he clarified that they will go after erring officials. “Kung mayroon pang ganyan eh hahabul-habulin talaga namin kayo, hindi p’wede ‘yan because we will not succeed,” he added.
(If there are still corrupt individuals, we will go after them because we won’t succeed.)
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