‘MR. EXCITEMENT’ Usually stern-looking and formal, a visibly relaxed Mar Roxas, the Liberal Party’s standard-bearer, answers questions on current issues during the Meet the Inquirer Multimedia Forum at the Philippine Daily Inquirer office in Makati City on Wednesday. At one point, the man sometimes described as “boring” jokingly referred to himself as “a pretty exciting guy.” RAFFY LERMA
Taking a page from President Aquino’s playbook, Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Mar Roxas thumbed down mounting calls to cut or rebracket income tax rates, saying such a move must be studied first and done responsibly.
“Obviously all tax measures should be subject to review. I just don’t think it is wise to review tax measures in the heat of the political atmosphere of an election,” Roxas said before a panel of editors and reporters at the fourth edition of the Meet the Inquirer Multimedia Forum on Wednesday.
“If this degenerates to just pa-pogian (a bid to look good), then let’s not tax anyone anymore. It will become a dive to the bottom. Somebody will say 20-percent tax; the next one will say 10-percent tax, or 5 percent, or just zero,” he said.
The presidential contender’s comments sounded so similar to Mr. Aquino’s recent remarks on the subject that it prompted Inquirer editor in chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc to say, “That seems to be the same line as President Aquino’s.”
Without missing a beat, Roxas replied: “Then we think alike.”
Unlike other presidential wannabes now pushing for income tax cuts, Roxas said he had actually walked his talk, having authored and passed a law that exempts minimum wage earners from income tax.
Track record
“I am the only candidate with a track record (of one) who had actually done something to lower taxes,” he said, referring to Republic Act No. 9504, which exempted those earning minimum wage from paying income tax.
“All those wannabes, they wanna do this, they wanna do that. What have they done? They had three years to act on this,” Roxas said.
The normally stern-looking candidate looked comfortable and sounded at ease fielding questions on a wide variety of topics that ranged from the pending income tax measures in Congress to whether he enjoyed the support of President Aquino’s sisters.
The questions rarely put Roxas off his stride, although some of them silenced him for a moment, among them a query from a netizen who wondered what he thought of some voters unwilling to vote for him out of sheer dislike for his wife, broadcaster Korina Sanchez-Roxas.
“I’m saddened to hear that,” Roxas said. “Korina is my wife and I love her very much.”
Roxas was the first presidential candidate to participate in the monthly Inquirer forum. In welcoming him, Inquirer chair Marixi R. Prieto jokingly thanked him for being “brave.”
In response, Roxas said he was grateful to the panel for asking “thoughtful questions” that were “hard but fair.”
In traffic every day
Responding to questions on Metro Manila traffic, Roxas said he knew exactly how the public felt.
“There’s no insulating myself from traffic, I am in traffic every day. I am with everyone. I know the frustration and anger as they see their hours wasting away,” he said.
“This morning, I had a 7 a.m. appointment in Makati. I left our house in Cubao at 6 a.m. and traffic was already heavy. So I know that. Yes, traffic exists, but there are solutions along the way,” he added.
Some of those solutions, he said, are the ongoing construction of the North Luzon Expressway and South Luzon Expressway connector, and his proposal to revisit and amend the law on bus franchises, to allow only one entity to hold the franchise to major routes like the Edsa highway belt.
But he admitted that changing the road situation would not be so simple. “All these bus companies have franchises. I will have to go to Congress to ask for a revision of the franchise law, so we can rebid out to one entity the franchise of buses on Edsa,” he said.
He was actually among the first public officials to take the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) when he was still trade secretary, Roxas said, adding that it was “not a gimmick.”
It just so happened that he lived in Cubao, and the MRT was the most convenient way to get to the Department of Trade and Industry in Makati City.
Exciting guy
Asked if he would pardon anyone who might be convicted in the billion-peso pork barrel scam allegedly masterminded by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, Roxas said: “Pardon must come with conviction. You can only pardon somebody after conviction. There can’t be pardon if there’s no apportionment of blame—not blame, but culpability,” he said.
Asked whether the Aquino sisters, Ballsy, Viel, Pinky and Kris support him, Roxas said he believed he had their support.
“The short answer is yes. But I think we must put this in context. The President’s sisters have always been private people. They left their cocoon because [the President] is their brother. I am not their brother or relative,” he said.
Asked about what he could do to change his “boring and sarcastic” demeanor, Roxas was nonplussed. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I was sarcastic. I thought I was a pretty exciting guy,” he deadpanned.
Turning serious, he said: “This is who I am. What you see is me. I don’t hide anything. What you see before you is 20 years of clean service. I know that at every opportunity, I have placed the interest of everyone above my own.”
He was still the same “Mr. Palengke,” a moniker he popularized as trade secretary making the rounds in public markets.
“(But) it’s not just about smiling all the time. I take your problems seriously. These are serious problems and they require serious solutions, because 100 million lives are at stake here,” he said.
Moral force
Roxas said he saw the President as the “moral force” behind his candidacy.
“He has passed on the baton to the future. He is a point of inspiration for the people,” the presidential candidate said.
Similarly, he urged the public: “Look at us (candidates) straight, and weigh us. I am not afraid to be weighed.”
Added the Wharton economic graduate: “Just like buying stuff from the market, check your candidates and (see) if there’s value for your money.” With a report from Gil C. Cabacungan