Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri on Monday, June 7, expressed support for the passage of the bill seeks to correct the Bureau of Internal Revenue's (BIR) supposed misinterpretation of the law modifying taxes imposed on private educational institutions.

Zubiri echoed his colleagues bid in asking the BIR to reconsider its Revenue Regulation 5-2021, which increases the 10 percent tax on private schools to 25 percent.

"I am totally against this and will support the bill of Senator Angara that would restore the taxation rate to 10 percent. We appeal to the BIR for reconsideration considering that these schools are having such a difficult time now during the pandemic," he said in a statement sent to reporters.

Zubiri expressed concern that the increased levy would further affect the learning of children, noting that the shift to online education has already "seen so many of their students drop out of school due to the difficulty online learning."

"Now is not the time to make life difficult for Educational Institutions especially when we’re grappling with our country having one of the worst results in Reading and Comprehension test results for our students," Zubiri said.

"We hope the BIR restores the rate back to its original percentage and we support the measures in Congress that would keep it intact," he added.

Senator Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara filed last Wednesday, June 2, Senate Bill No 2272, which seeks to amend the National Internal Revenue Code to correct the BIR's interpretation of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act or the CREATE law.

Senators said the state tax collector issued an "erroneous" regulation in increasing the tax imposed on proprietary schools, which they originally intended to reduce to one percent.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto also backed Angara's bill, but said this should not prevent the BIR to rectify its mistake.