By Digoy Fernandez

FIRST of all, we must make one thing clear. We support and believe in the right of the state of impose just taxes that are to be used for the maintenance and development of a country and its people.

Unfortunately, this principle works well in theory only in a few cases. Because of very poor tax administration(i.e., the inability or unwillingness of our revenue collectors to properly enforce tax regulations) the government finance team is often pressed to make up for deficits that crop up because of the larger amount of expenditures over receipts.

So, what does the typical government bureaucrat do when tasked with thinking about ways to bridge the gap between expenses and revenues? The knee-jerk response would be to simply impose a new slew of taxes, the more the better.

Perish the thought that revenue agents should soil their hands with attempts to impose a more efficient regime to tax collection or administration on existing taxes! And yet, our country’s multilateral and bilateral creditors and donors have long said that our revenue people have to tighten the ship and undertake a more efficient collection machinery.

What seems to be the problem, then, in simply enforcing better tax and revenue collections? It is an open secret that the two or three main revenue generation agencies are plum posts sought by those seeking to increase their respective net worths.

I recall an instance when a supporter of Ka Jaime Ferrer visited the old man when I happened to be in his residence. When Ka Jaime asked the man what he wanted, he simply requested that he be given a position in either Customs or the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Ka Jaime–a paragon for honesty in government–shouted at the hapless man: “What? I will assign you there just so you can steal or make money illegally? No!!!”

This is why the onerous book tax contemplated by the brain-dead Espele Sales of the Finance department was pounced upon by book lovers and right thinking people both here and abroad.

First of all, it was a clear violation of an international convention, and no amount of stretching of semantics could or would justify such a stupid tax, all to raise a few bucks for the government.

Unfortunately for Ms Sales, just when the campaign against her and her tax scheme was escalating, the two Davids (Cook and Archuleta) visited the country. Their arrival, stay, and performances here resulted in the Philippines coming up in the top ten places being followed in Twitter.

Well, to make a long story short, local cyberspace mavens twittered Espele Sales and her ill-contrived tax scheme resulting in a rapidly mushrooming viral anti-Sales/anti-tax campaign that was likely to drag President into the more negative aspects of the fray. Whatever her motivations, she most likely saw the light and rescinded the stupid book tax. End of problem.

Once again, people in government were put on notice that they cannot assume a “business as usual” with respect to their shenanigans, because all it takes is a small band of intrepid cyberspace jockeys to put out the dirty laundry of these malefactors for all to see…and get very angry at.

ONE of the stories related to me by my late father about his friends’ exploits while they were still students at the Ateneo (before the War), were the times they played hookey and swam across the Pasig River. Needless to say, they would often get caught and earned the ire of the Jesuit prefects of discipline. But the point being made here is that, in those days, the Pasig was clean enough to attract people to jump in for a relaxing swim.

Many years later, I found myself helping the late Roberto T. Villanueva, a good friend of my late father, as a consultant in the newly established office euphemistically referred to as the Coordinating Council for Philippine Assistance Program (CCPAP).

The CCPAP was charged with overseeing the inflow and expenditure of bilateral and multilateral funds meant to help spur or maintain economic and social development. One time, it was suggested that I look into the cleaning of both the Pasig River and Laguna de Bay. As a committed environmentalist, this was the sort of project that got me excited, until I made a series of phone calls to development agencies and donor institutions. In short, they said that there were dozens of clean-up studies floating around, and that only political will was needed to get the project off the ground.

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HAVING graduated from grade school in 1962, high school in 1966, and college in 1971 (all from La Salle-Taft) plus two years in graduate school (AIM in 1973), I have come to realize that my compatriots and I are part of the leading edge in the Boomer generation.

Since the Boomer generation embraces those born after the great War (WWII) up until the hated war (Vietnam in the 60s), my bunch is pretty much in our early 60s and feeling the heavy hand of gravity––falling hair and drooping stomachs on our physiques. In addition, we now have to contend with more senior moments as we tend to be more forgetful in both big and little things.

My La Salle classmates continue to whoop it up every quarter or so with a class party featuring the music of the 60s and 70s. Fortunately, we have sort of an in-house band composed of many who played the music of the 60s back then, the GGBB. What does that name mean? Anything from Great Green Boogie Band to “Gago Gago Bobo Band,” depending on how many bottles of wine find their way into my classmates’ constitutions.

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By Digoy Fernandez

There are many compelling reasons for continuing education, and this is true for executives meant for higher positions, aging dinosaurs of the corporate world, but especially for crusty entrepreneurs who have built up businesses from scratch. When we wanted to change the mind-set of the middle and top executives of a particular organization, we would start by sending junior executives to school for either short courses or full-scale MBAs. Before long, the more progressive among the middle managers demanded some form of continuing education of their own. After a few years, different levels of management and staff were undergoing complementary management education, and our organization spawned a generation of decision makers and thinkers who could self-start or handle crises on their own.

When we first proposed computerization, the immediate answer was that it would cost too much. This was in the early late 70s and early 80s, mind you. An opening occurred when we were loaned some versions of the early word processors by a client. These WPs were strategically distributed by my office to a select of group of senior executive secretaries…who became enamored with their new toys and demanded that they be kept with their offices permanently. Faced with certain rebellion from the senior secretaries’ ranks, senior management caved in to this first thrust in favor of automation.

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BECAUSE of the excitement generated by the Tomorrow Leaf, one guesses that so many people are indeed looking for relief from the many ailments that plague them or their loved ones. Of course, my doctors always stress that the best way to avoid getting sick is to simply diet (eat the right food and avoid junk food) or exercise (walk walk walk, or just move move move!).

But then, weak mortals that we all are, we do indulge once in a while – sometimes more than just once in a while–in delicious ice cream, candies, pork rinds, and many other wonderful food that add to our weight and calorie levels. Thus, the rush to look for those “miracle herbs” like the Ashitaba medicinal plant that seems to tackle so many of the ailments that plague us in this modern age.

One day, I requested Wilson Ang, the generous proprietor of Bio-Research, to lend us his lovely daughter Charlene to deliver a short spiel on the Ashitaba plant to the Tahanan Village Garden Club. She came with some fifty newly established plant stems and proceeded to explain the history of the plant and its healing properties.

Needless to say, the Ashitaba has quietly become a hit in our village and is now sought after by many of its residents, especially since the once young contemporaries who settled the village have grown older over time. Others took our advice and have gone to Bio-Research in Sucat to obtain their own plants for both propagation and ingestion.

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