UniTeam presidential candidate Bongbong Marcos doesn't favor the imposition of new taxes on Filipinos, saying it's not timely and would only further burden the pandemic-weary people.
“Depends on what sectors and in what area but if it’s going to be, if the brunt of it is going to be felt by the consumer, I would not be very partial to that for the simple reason na hirap na hirap na ang mga tao, wag mo nang dagdagan ang bigat (the people have been suffering a lot, let’s not add to the burden)," Marcos said on the subject of new taxes.
The Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) standard-bearer made the statement during his one-on -one interview with veteran broadcast journalist Ruth Cabal that aired over CNN Philippines on Tuesday night, April 26.
Marcos explained that while taxes are an important source of government funding, it must not be resorted to unless extremely necessary, especially if those that will be directly affected are ordinary citizens or the masses.
In the same interview, the survey-leading Ilocano Palace hopeful noted that the country has many pandemic-induced problems that need to be addressed.
“Everywhere you look... there are problems, our educational system we really have to fix it very, very ... We have to support the teachers more and when I talk about support not just the suweldo (salaries), not just the benefits, it’s also the training because, you know, the technologies, the new systems are moving so quickly,” Marcos said.
“The teachers should have the benefit of knowing all of that para maituro nila sa bata, para yung kabataan natin pag graduate eh talagang magandang pagkaka-train sa kanila (so that they can teach it to the children, and ensure that they're knowledgeable once they graduate),” he added.
The former senator also reckoned that its high-time for government to offer agency-specific scholarship programs.
"The agencies should have scholarship programs like the DA (Department of Agriculture) will have scholarship programs for agronomist and agriculturist and hydrologists -- yung mga kailangan nilang experts yung ganon (those are the kinds of experts that they need). If we need engineers for the energy side, then the DOE (Department of Energy) will have to sponsor scholars for that requirements. we need good lawyers for the DOJ (Department of Justice), then the DOJ will support scholars for that," he said.
"We have to improve the bureaucracy, we have to improve the quality of public service,” Marcos stressed.