Awkward

There is a new law, the Attrition Act, which aims to increase revenue collections of the government by way of strengthening the Rewards and incentive Funds for the Bureaus of Internal Revenue and of Customs. If the coffers exceed by 30 percent of the bureau target, it stands to get 15 percent of the excess and another 20 of that above the excess. How they would divide the spoil among them is very easy. The ingrained systems at these bureaus saw to it since time immemorial.

It sounds surprising that the loopholes attendant to collection are sidelined while a new procedure expectedly unsure of surprise endings is being introduced.

If you might recall for the last half century, the bad sides of these agencies had already been awashed of an invisible internal award system that benefitted many a number of sacred cows and calves. It extended from the highest officer to the lowest of pawns. Everyman was happy. Who would dare bore a hole in the boat?

I had a cousin who transacted his seat covers in the 70’s with these men and women at the bureaus. He got a very high margin of profit selling his wares but squandered it anyhow and became impoverished. Nonetheless, he could talk at length of the affluence of the bureaucrats, even ordinary employees at that. It made the poor youngsters in the neighborhood burned out study lamps hoping that someday, they, too, would land a job in the fairer of those gold mines.

Whenever a new president of this good old republic is installed to office, the commissioners of the bureaus are often replaced. Their first move is to free the graft-bolted agencies to inhale the fresh mandate of the man or woman at the top with rickety rules and values. They fail. They are no match even only to the simple adage: for the boys.

It’s a re-creation of David and Goliath. Is this still possible when most in our time have replaced God with mammon? Well, yes if David would be armed with 9mm that doesn’t jam.

It might as well be accepted that the accuser could no longer bluff another through the recognition that their accusing fingers have the rest of them pointing backwards.

So the weaker would prefer the lesser grip. It is right here where they may just have the chance to shift from one reward class to another. So much so the good work of a few could be for the grossly incompetent majority, especially when its spookes weigh more. Are you to define the ghastly? That’s definitely unhealthful, you may say.

Then we have the penalty: for officials and employees whose collections are short of the target by 7.5 percent, they get fired. Legal minds see this as nebulous. Pinpointing responsibilities in the provisions are confusing, they say. Just take the basis of removal “with due consideration of all relevant factors” is a runaround that can take a lifetime to settle.

Say P470 B was the revenue in an agency, as was in the BIR in 2004 and it played with 7.5 percent shortage. With 35 equally-situated personnel as a given, which is unlikely, each gets over a cool P1 B. Who would not gamble for such? Remember that he who has the purse has the power.

This is not to agree to reports that the Lateral Attrition Law was railroaded in the great halls of legislations to assure the acceptance of a tableau to the detriment of the primary source. But the question remains, who stand to benefit from the undertaking? You can imagine the masses getting a little breathing space, yet the poor folks don’t own the house. Someone else does. And that’s what counts to them, don’t you think. I think so, too. And the question remains.