Senator Christopher “Bong” Go today threw his full support for the immediate passage by Congress of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) bill.

The tax reform measure, according to Go, seeks to achieve faster and equitable regional development and provide economic opportunities in the provinces by encouraging businesses to invest in the countryside.

The CREATE bill, sponsored by Senator Pilar Juliana “Pia” S. Cayetano, chairwoman of the Senate ways and means committee, seeks to rationalize the country’s fiscal incentives system by encouraging businesses to invest in the Philippines while the country gets the most value out of the incentives granted.

The measure does this by ensuring that the incentives given to investors are performance-based, time-bound, targeted, and transparent.

During a recent Senate regular session, Go asked Cayetano about how the measure will benefit the economy.

Cayetano responded, saying that President Duterte certified the bill as urgent to “immediately reduce corporate income tax from 30 percent to 25 percent.”

She said that this measure needs to be passed immediately so that businesses could benefit from it by next year.

Go, chairman of the Senate health and demography committee, then asked how the measure would benefit the government’s objectives in its implementation of the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa (BP2) Program.

“One of my advocacies is the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa Program. This seeks to provide job opportunities in the countryside, and address traffic congestion and pollution in Metro Manila. How can CREATE complement this program?” Go asked.

Cayetano responded saying, “I would like to emphasize that I really pushed for the provisions that would generally identify the areas and give incentives to provinces to the areas outside the metropolitan areas.”

She added that the Strategic Investment Priority Plan would also specify areas outside Metro Manila that would be prioritized for the measure.

Go then remarked that the grant of tax incentives should target the provinces so that investors could invest outside of Metro Manila and more economic opportunities would be made available for Filipinos living in or moving to the countryside.

“Kailangang i-encourage ang investors to put up businesses sa mga probinsya para magkaroon ng maraming trabaho, maraming negosyo, plantasyon, factory at iba pang pwedeng kabuhayan ng mga Pilipino sa probinsya,’’ he added. (We need to encourage the investors to put up businesses in the provinces in order to generate jobs, there are several businesses, plantations, factories and others that can provide livelihood for the Filipinos in the provinces..

Go queried how CREATE would give job security to workers in industries affected by the pandemic, particularly micro, small and medium enterprises.

Cayetano said that the reduction of corporate income tax would greatly benefit small businesses.

‘’Ninety nine percent of businesses are MSMEs (Micro, Small. Medium Enterprises) which I mentioned and they employ around 65 percent of our workers. So kapag tinulungan natin ang MSMEs, then 65 percent of our workforce natutulungan din,” she said.

Go then urged his fellow senators to support the measure as he commended the good sponsor for pushing this important measure.