Drilon wrong to rely on Recto sin tax report, says Osmeña

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III

Senator Franklin Drilon “would be in error” if he insists on using the so-called Recto report to kick-start the Senate debate on higher sin taxes since he himself does not agree with its provisions.

Sen. Sergio Osmena III on Thursday said it would be better if the ways and means committee, of which he is a member, took back the much maligned report written by former panel chair Sen. Ralph Recto and replaced it with the measure filed by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Recto’s report was criticized since it would yield only P15 billion, an amount that would not fully fund the government’s Universal Health Care Program that would pay for the treatment of people suffering from ailments caused by tobacco and liquor.

Recto was also stung by a sub-Cabinet official’s insinuation that he may have received tobacco lobby money since his report significantly trimmed the tobacco firms’ tax burden from P30 billion to P5.2 billion.

Favoring liquor firms

Recto lashed out, saying the sin tax version passed by the House of Representatives—which the Department of Finance (DOF) supported—in turn favored liquor companies.

Santiago has urged the committee to use her report in place of Recto’s since her version is expected to yield P60 billion – the amount the DOF aims to collect from the taxes on tobacco and alcohol products.

The DOF openly expressed its disdain of Recto’s report.  Health advocates asked the senators to pull up Santiago’s bill and use it instead.

But Osmeña said the way and means committee could not simply rely on Recto’s announcement that he had withdrawn his report after he resigned as panel chair.

“Senator Recto has no power to withdraw (the report) by himself. (It has to be) a committee decision, that’s why it’s called a committee report. It’s not the chairman’s report or the Recto report. We just refer to it as the Recto version but it is not his,” Osmena explained.

Report as basis for amendments

Osmeña took note of a statement made by Drilon—who as committee vice chair assumed its leadership after Recto resigned—that he [Drilon] would prefer to use Recto’s report as the basis for the debates and amendments.

The plan, apparently, is to alter Recto’s report through a series of amendments until its provisions hit DOF targets.  This is to save time and have the bill approved before the Senate begins tackling the proposed P2-trillion national budget for 2013.

Drilon has said the additional revenue that would be collected from the new sin taxes had already been factored into next year’s budget.

“The acting chair suggested we just stay with the Recto report because it would take too long to come up with a new committee report. I think that was in error. How can he defend a committee report that he does not agree with?” Osmena said in an interview.

“Senator Drilon will find himself in a fix because we can only question him based on what is in the committee report so bubugbugin namin siya (we’re going to pounce on him). So why would he defend it if he does not agree with it? He might end up saying ‘I agree with you’ to whoever questions it,” Osmeña said.