Evaluación de la idoneidad de la República de la decisión del Gobierno de Filipinas para recaudar el VAT en las tarifas de peaje.

Posted by eytutritu

So what is VAT?

- a value-added tax (VAT) is a type of utilization or sales tax. From the viewpoint of the consumer, it is a tax on the purchase price. From that of the trader, it is a tax only on the “value-added” to a manufactured goods, material or service, from an accounting point of view, by this stage of its manufacture or distribution. The manufacturer remits to the government the difference between these two amounts, and retains the rest for themselves to offset the taxes they had previously paid on the inputs.

Having VAT on toll fees has positive and negativs effects to our country. By having another source of public income of the government could make our country better because if just means that it can provide more than the usual budget, but for those people who are affected by this implementation of VAT on toll fees, they are obliged to pay higher rates than before, for example, the dealers of any product needed by the majority will sell them with a higher price, for the consumer, it would be a burden, or for the passengers who travel along the expressways would have higher fares.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said that “the collection from the VAT on toll fees will be used for its proper purpose. The Department of Budget and Management has taken every pain and effort to make sure that the public funds are spent wisely.” Malacanang had eralier said that proceeds from the toll fee value added tax will fund social service projects.

“We should remember tha the proceeds from this tax will be used to fund the government’s pro-poor programs. This administration will spend the taxes collected to worthy programs unlike during the previous administration. We are looking right now at all programs that are working, that are doable and use all these revenues for social services, for alleviation of poverty. So, that is the purpose why we are collecting all these taxes, for a greater good.” Lacierda said.

People are saying that toll fees are evidently, a form of tax. The Supreme Court even defined it cleraly as road users’ tax. So if they will collect VAT on toll fees, it is patently illegal to impose a tax upon a tax.

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Crecimiento Económico Teoría/Modelo y su posible aplicación en la República de Filipinas, el ajuste

Posted by eytutritu

Economic growth is defined as the escalating aptitude of the economy to gratify the desires of its members. Economic growth is facilitated by the increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a known quantity of output. Lowered costs boost the demand for goods and services. Economic growth is also the effect of innovative products and services.

Our group has selected the “Big Push Model” since we understand what it means and we can relate it to the Republic of the Philippines setting.

From the Wikipedia.org, the Big Push is a concept in development economics or welfare economics that emphasizes the fact that a firm's decision, whether to industrialize or not, depends on its expectation of what other firms will do. It assumes economies of scale and oligopolistic (small number of sellers) market structure and explains when industrialization would happen.

In this theory, it was emphasized that in order to be more productive and an industrialized country, we need to give enormous investments in infrastructures and education, in which these two can have a big, positive effect in our country if we give enough notice. In the Republic of the Philippines setting, we need to consider this theory because it can help our country to progress, especially, there is a Budget-Cut on Education nowadays because of Aquino’s notion to gradually reduce the subsidy to SUCs to push them toward becoming self-sufficient and financially independent, given their ability to raise their income and to utilize it for their programs and projects. He should not do that because prioritizing education here in our country is the most brilliant idea a president would have, as the sayings goes “Education is the key to success.” It’s true. Giving a cut to the budget means lesser opportunity to be productive at school and because of that intelligence does not increase too.

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Producto Interno Bruto y Producto Nacional Bruto.

Posted by eytutritu

Based on our researches:

Gross Domestic Product or simply GDP means monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period, though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis. It includes all of private and public consumption, government outlays, investments and exports less imports that occur within a defined territory.

GDP = C + G + I + NX

where:

"C" is equal to all private consumption, or consumer spending, in a nation's economy
"G" is the sum of government spending
"I" is the sum of all the country's businesses spending on capital
"NX" is the nation's total net exports, calculated as total exports minus total imports. (NX = Exports - Imports)

(Investopedia) GDP is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health of a country, as well as to gauge a country's standard of living. Critics of using GDP as an economic measure say the statistic does not take into account the underground economy - transactions that, for whatever reason, are not reported to the government. Others say that GDP is not intended to gauge material well-being, but serves as a measure of a nation's productivity, which is unrelated.

…..

Gross National Product or simply GNP means an economic statistic that includes GDP, plus any income earned by residents from overseas investments, minus income earned within the domestic economy by overseas residents.

GNP = GDP + income earned by domestic residents - income earned by foreign investors in the domestic market

(Investopedia) GNP is a measure of a country's economic performance, or what its citizens produced (i.e. goods and services) and whether they produced these items within its borders.

GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT AND GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT
BY EXPENDITURE SHARES:
Annual 2008 and 2009
AT CURRENT AND CONSTANT 1985 PRICES, IN MILLION PESOS

TYPE OF EXPENDITURE	AT CURRENT PRICES			AT CONSTANT PRICES
TYPE OF EXPENDITURE	2008	2009	Growth Rate (%)	2008	2009	Growth Rate (%)
Personal Consumption Expenditure	5,281,072	5,674,966	7.5	1,107,569	1,152,658	4.1
Government Consumption	697,653	809,688	16.1	91,214	101,163	10.9
Capital Formation	1,136,138	1,124,644	-1.0	257,766	243,052	-5.7
Exports	2,736,310	2,431,373	-11.1	663,324	574,284	-13.4
Less : Imports	2,842,003	2,364,761	-16.8	633,770	621,543	-1.9
Statistical discrepancy	400,201	3,007		-69,017	-17,499

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT	7,409,371	7,678,917	3.6	1,417,087	1,432,115	1.1
Net factor income from the rest of the world	852,121	1,131,067		174,022	222,821
GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT	8,261,492	8,809,984	6.6	1,591,109	1,654,936	4.0
MEMORANDUM ITEMS: Trading gain (loss) from changes in the terms of trade				-53,998	63,868
Gross National Income				1,537,111	1,718,804

(source: NSCB)

From the information above, we could see that Gross National Product is supplementary than the Gross Domestic Product.

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Género y Desarrollo (económico)

Posted by eytutritu

Last Tuesday, our professor in Economics told us about the upcoming symposium in the theatre and he needs two delegates to represent our class. It’s all about the Gender and (Economic) Development or simply GAD. It aims equality and equity amongst all genders in a particular place. GAD approach focuses on the socially constructed basis of differences between men and women and emphasizes the need to challenge existing gender roles and relations

“Gender Equality” denotes women having the same opportunities in life as men, including the ability to participate in the public sphere, while “Gender Equity’ denotes the equivalence in life outcomes for women and men, recognizing their different needs and interests, and requiring a redistribution of power and resources. (http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports/re55.pdf)

On the said event, first speaker Vice-Mayor of the Angeles City, Vicky Vega emphasized the difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs and Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.

However, this time, GAD doesn't only promote women’s empowerment but also of the LGBT/GLBT community which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. (For some instance, it is LGBTQ/GLBTQ. Q stands for “queer or questioning”, the people who may be unsure of their gender or still exploring fall on this category.) LGBT community demands from the government to pass laws which can protect and promote their human rights, particularly the Anti-Discrimination Bill that has been languishing in the Philippine Congress for the past eleven years and the other laws as the Gender Recognition Law and Anti-hate Crime Law.

“Jhem, 24, is a pretty transgender who frequently wins drag beauty pageants, a loving child and a doting provider to younger siblings who depend on her for their school expenses and lunches. She graduated with a degree in business management. Her neighbors in Barangay Caybiga, Caloocan City considers her to be better off than many residents who live a hard scrabble life in the village where unemployment runs at around 40%.

However, Jhem laments that she has to be content with working as a hairdresser in the neighborhood, working long hours for less than minimum wage. After graduation, she spent months looking for a job in the corporate world, only to be turned down by interviewers.

"I didn't want to think that my feminine demeanor is the reason why they won't hire me," Jhem sighs. "In college, I was always in denial, refusing to believe my other cross-dressing friends who kept telling me I will also have to be content working typecast work for queers, you know, like cutting hair."

Like Jhem, hundreds of thousands of transgender, lesbians and gay men all over the Philippines are victims of discrimination in hiring policies, wage levels, benefits and other workplace benefits. The problem is so pervasive that the victims are not even painfully aware that they suffer inequalities in terms of quality of life and legal benefits.” (http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8356368-philippines-antidiscrimination-bill-good-for-gays-benefits-economy)

Same as to the second speaker, the well-known choreographer Douglas Nierras, had said about his friend named Rayco(?), Rayco graduated as a Summa Cum Laude in a prestigious school in Manila, (I forgot the course he took but it’s related in economics.) he was teaching in that school but, he’d started having difficulties about it because of his appearance. He was a male but acts like a female; simply a transgender. The faculty advised him to resign so that he can make the conflict stop and not get worse. They also said that it was his looks that’s causing the problem. For Rayco, it was painful to have a forced-resignation just because of his gender, it was not his intention to act that way, and for him it’s normal, he’s normal; That was the reason why he applied to be a showgirl in Japan, and because of that he earned a lot and got rich, upon earning so much he returned to the school where he taught and told his boss, "thank you because you let me get rich by leaving the university."

Douglas shared that story to make his point be clear. He wants us to realize that because of discrimination amongst them, we have lost a brilliant teacher who should have been educating students, making them be productive in our economy, instead of entertaining other people. Gays contribute more in our economy more than what we thought or think. LGBT community just wants acceptance and respect, nothing more, nothing less.

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US Crisis Económica, Ya No Una Contradicción de Términos

Posted by eytutritu

The credit rate downgrade of the United States is the latest that the GLOBAL CRISIS which erupted last 2008 was not yet resolved. The US markets continue to fall despite Obama's calming words.

This is the United States of America. No matter what some agency says, we will always be a triple A country.
-Barack Obama

President Barack Obama blamed the Tea Party Republicans for losing the Triple A status of the US. The crisis will have a big impact on our country, the Republic of Philippines. We will have weaker remittances, lower exports, and more problematic investments. As of now, the USD is decreasing vs. the PHP.

The problem of the United States is not just in immediate financial terms but rather it shows how deep the long-term obstacles are. They are all facing slowing growth due to public debt troubles, austerity, high unemployment and the lack of productive domestic investment opportunities- same as the woes in the philippines.

All is not well for the world economy and this is the single most important economic feature in the current world situation. The sooner the Philippines' economic directions are focused on building the domestic economy the better. Job creation and poverty reduction will not happen if the same failed globalization policies of previous administrations are retained. There must instead be more democratic income, asset and wealth reform and greater assertions of economic sovereignty in the country’s international trade and investment relations.
-Sonny Africa

US President Obama announced an agreement reached early this week to cut about $1 trillion over 10 years so as not to drag the fragile US economy.

Earlier, Fitch Ratings said Philippine banks have enough “firepower” to survive the negative impact of the fragile economic growth in the US and the debt crisis in Europe.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is confident that banks operating in the Philippines are well capitalized to survive the debt crisis being faced by the US in light of a responsible downgrade of its TRIPLE A credit rating despite an agreement reached by Democrat and Republican leaders to reduce its deficit and avoid default.

Growth remains not just imbalanced, but weak around the world. Economic activity is slowing and the risks are if anything increasing as the US downgrade, to take a particular instance, shows. The situation is still very fragile despite repeated claims in the last two years of the world having dealt with the crisis and now slowly, if unevenly, recovering.

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Estado de la Nación 2011

Posted by eytutritu

The main topics tackled in PNoy’s 2011 SONA

-President Aquino vows to end culture of ‘wang-wang’. “To end the wang-wang culture in government, we employed zero-based budgeting to review programs. For this year and the last, zero-based budgeting has allowed us to end many wasteful programs.”

-President Aquino discussed that his administration focus to end culture of ‘wang-wang’ also resulted to a lesser Filipinos who experienced hunger. We have today a better economy, our country will have a cheaper, more reliable source of energy, more honest DPWH, no more over-importation of rice, better benefits for police and military.

-His government lines up new legislative measures for Filipinos to benefit, like better implementation of Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was signed in 2003, more employment for the Filipino People, good health programs for the poor, his Congress passed a law synchronizing ARMM with the national elections, solutions to flooding problems, his DOST and UP have even teamed up to develop a prototype monorail system for our country.

-He calls on private sector to pay proper taxes…”Today we can see that our taxes are going where they should, and therefore there is no reason not to pay the proper taxes. I say to you: it’s not just the government, but our fellow citizens, who are cheated out of the benefits that these taxes would have provided.”

-Aquino makes a stand: ‘Spratly Islands are ours’ and his government will defend the country’s territory and sovereignty.
Aquino administration ready to submit proposed 2012 national budget to Congress.

-President Aquino appoints Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales as new Ombudsman.

-President Aquino asks Filipinos to stop ‘culture of negativism’ or ‘crab mentality’.

(http://xyvemoney.com/president-noynoy-aquino-sona-2011-speech/82/)

The State of the Nation Address (Filipino: Talumpati sa Kalagayan ng Bansa, abbreviated SONA) *source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_the_Nation_Address_(Philippines)

Our group didn’t watch PNoy’s SONA, but we found a copy of his speech on the web. Upon reading it, we noticed that the first SONA and the second one were just quite the same. He mentioned again about the faults of the previous administration, the wang-wang thingy. A whole year (three hundred sixty five days) is long enough to make several sagacious things for the country; it’s somehow disappointing that PNoy wasted it by doing only insignificant stuffs. It is good news and we’re glad he’s making actions to bring discontinuance on/to the corruption in the Philippines, but it’s just not enough.

“Tapusin na po natin ang kultura ng negatibismo; iangat natin ang kapwa-Pilipino sa bawat pagkakataon. Bakit po ang iba, ang hilig maghanap ng kung anu-anong pangit sa ating bayan? At napakahirap—parang kasalanan—na magsabi ng maganda? Naalala pa po ba natin noong huling beses tayong pumuri sa kapwa Pilipino?'—Pnoy.

Does he clearly understand what he said or have he heard himself when he said that? He wants negativism to end, but how can it end if he, himself, talks about wang-wang over and over again, why don’t he manage his time effectively and give some to other things which are more important than that? He’s becoming superfluous.

Some of the interviews on television regarding the Second SONA of Benigno Aquino III made me chuckle for one said “Parang yung unang SONA lang niya, umulit lang, inantok nga ako eh.” and the ralliers shouted “Tama na ang buladas!” and according to the Pulse Asia survey, his popularity ratings went down to 71% as of June of this year from 80% at the time he started office. Though according to political analysts, 71% is still high for a two year period, it still went down. For some reasons we speculated, it’s because of the broken promises and he never gave emphasis of what are the plans for the next five years of his presidency.

"Kaya po, sa sambayanang Pilipino, ang aking Boss na nagtimon sa atin tungo sa araw na ito: maraming, maraming salamat po sa pagbabagong tinatamasa natin ngayon." --Pnoy.

QSB: What reformation is he talking about? "Buti pa ang Lovelife niya, nakakaranas palagi ng CHANGE."

PNOY'S SONA 2011

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La administración de Noynoy Aquino

Posted by eytutritu

Our group shared the same views and sentiments in politics, concerning the administration of Benigno Aquino III.; we are all anti-PNoy. In this assessment about him are generally criticisms. Everything written here are purely opinions of the bloggers, no side was favored so the post can’t be considered as biased.

One of the members said: “As I was reading an article about PNoy’s presidency, his speaker said that on PNoy’s SONA, he wouldn’t tell his programs being implemented and projects made because he wants remain humble ‘daw’. On the comment box, someone said ‘he wouldn’t say anything about the things he did because there’s nothing to say!’ it caught my attention,State of the Nation Address is the opportunity of the ruler to put above his administration, to tell people of his own country about its progress, to inform us, citizens about the changes of some things which matter to everyone and make his voters feel proud and not regret, so the questions are: Why not tell? Why not inform? WHY?? Get rid of and stop lambasting the previous administration’s faults, we can’t do something about it by just saying them publicly but at least try to make a change and avoid those mistakes to be repeated.”

Speaking of change, we’re afraid that our beloved president demonstrates that he has difficulties about it. Know why? Because simply quitting smoking, he cannot do. He cannot change his habit of it. On an interview last year, one asked him about his smoking-habit, if he’ll quit because now that he’s the president, he serves as a model to us and he said it’s none of our business because it’s his choice to continue smoking or not. (Paraphrasing.) He was a good role model on what he answered, perhaps.

He cannot make decisions wisely and quickly concerning serious issues like what happened in the hostage taking of HongKong nationals by a suspended policeman who was shot dead after the negotiation with him that failed and that of drug-trafficking happened in China wherein 3 Filipinos were condemned to death.

Also, he said he would fight corruption, how can he do that after killing the Freedom of Information Bill? That bill was supposed to stand the right of every Filipino people to know all the information being held or in controlled by the government. The house speaker said that the Malacañang was hoping for the FOI to be passed, but unfortunately it failed because of lack of votes, if the Malacañang really do hoped for it, they should did their best to pass the bill and not called for a quorum, which is not necessary at all times. Back to the topic, what kind of fight was he saying? To punch the corrupt-officials like what Pacman do to his opponent? Or was he just kidding when he says“Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap”? Probably, it should be “Kung walang kurap, walang mahirap” or “kung walang corrupt, walang uupo.”

He hasn't proved himself yet. We do hope for the change and improvement he promised to us on his campaign, but for now, he failed us.

That’s all.

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