President-elect Bongbong Marcos revealed during a Facebook live interview Thursday, May 26 a few details of his fiscal policy once he officially takes over Malacañang.
It was a wide-ranging topic, and the former senator tried his best to cover as much ground as he can in the hour-long interview.
"My approach to the fiscal policy first is to codify, or make it simpler to make it more understandable," said Marcos, who was proclaimed winner of the May 9 Palace race only on Wednesday by members pf Congress sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC).
"Just from what I hear from legal practitioners, we have to codify our tax. Kasi yung tax natin hindi walang (It’s because our tax), it has evolved over many administration," he said.
"So gagawin natin yung plano natin (So we will executive our plan) and the fiscal policy is going to follow that. Now in my discussions with our legislators yesterday (Wednesday) we are trying to create some fiscal space. So that to reduce the load on ordinary citizens and maybe move the load up, the tax load up and there’re also distribution of wealth implications to that which are very very important. It’s one of the areas that I think we have to work on very very hard," he said, alluding to his conversations with Congress members during his proclamation.
Marcos opined that the distribution of wealth in the Philippines "has not been very equitable".
"So that’s something that the fiscal policy will hope to balance, achieve a better balance," he said.
"Secondly is to reduce as much of the tax colelctions from those who area suffering from the pandemic, the ill effects of the pandemic. That means MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises), agricultural sector, transport, yung mga ganun, so babawasan natin (and the like, we will reduce those). Let’s hope we can raise funds in other area and use it there," he said.
"Then again, very important to me is the distribution of wealth issue. So that will also be part of the thinking that we’ll obtain when we talk about fiscal policy," the president-elect further said.