Legarda defends Angara after Duterte quip over tax reform

Senator Loren Legarda on Wednesday defended Senator Sonny Angara following President Rodrigo Duterte’s seeming threat on Angara's 2019 re-election bid if he fails to shepherd the passage of the proposed tax reform package in full.

“It’s not Sonny’s job singly, or it’s not his fault at all, that we seem slow. And we are not slow. He’s been hearing it. So I’m here to defend and to support the chair,” Legarda said during the Senate ways and means committee hearing.

“He may have been mentioned, and that’s good. It means that there is a focus on tax reform. And that’s focus not just on additional revenues, but also on correcting the weaknesses in the tax system. That’s why it’s called a tax reform measure. Just that good word for that re-electionist senator,” Legarda said.

Angara, who earlier said he was willing to quit his chairmanship of the ways and means panel over the tax reform proposal, then told Legarda: “That said, madame chair, you can be my campaign manager.”

During his state address Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte singled out Angara for not clapping when he appealed to the Senate to pass the tax reform proposal “in full” and with “haste.”

Duterte even made an apparent threat to Angara’s re-election bid in 2019, saying: “Bantay ka lang sa eleksyon, tingnan mo.”

Angara said he aims to come out with a committee report on the government’s tax reform package by September.

Several senators have already expressed their apprehension in supporting the package in its totality, cautious about the impact on the poor and vulnerable sectors.

"May mga aspeto na magiging kontrobersyal, pag-u-usapan at pag-de-debatehan. I’m just a chairman so may version tayo but at the end of the day, ang magde-desisyon diya majority of the senators, kung ano tingin nila ang tama,” Angara said Tuesday.

The proposed tax reform measure, a priority of the Duterte administration, is aiming to lower income taxes while limiting VAT exemptions, adjusting excise taxes on oil and automobiles, and imposing new taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages. — MDM, GMA News