Death and Taxes

Coed commits suicide over tuition. She could have been a shining example of how the public domain works, instead she's dead. There's a vivid connection between  death and taxes.

Education is one of the areas that taxes are suppose to cover. Trillions of pesos, collected as taxes, failed to save this particular life.  We have income tax, corporate tax, value added tax, sin tax, inheritance tax among thousands of variation which should have gone to areas the citizenry can enjoy and avail: (1) education (2) justice (3) peace and order along (4) with parks and roads.

Everybody knows justice is a money game and I am not talking about bribes, yet, but just normal procedures. One gets arrested, even on suspicion and the bills stack up. One needs a lawyer, one needs to pay bail, one needs to pay the court for rescheduling, copies of documents, etc etc. Having had my share of being incarcerated, I saw people doing more time than the offense would merit for a number of reasons: (1) unavailability of the judge or fiscal; my particular case ran ten  years; (2) no representation, the Public Attorneys' Office is hard to access otherwise there won't be cases where holding period before trial surpasses incarceration period decreed by law, example shoplifting; (3) backlog of cases, the court my case was assigned hears over 100 cases a day. 

If that was not bad enough the 15th congress of the senate enacts the cyber crime act effectively disenfranchising the people of the freedom of speech. Where's justice? Then, their own members commit plagiarism after a member of the supreme court. It's funny but it hurts when I laugh. If there was something about the election, it should be to boot out the incumbents.

What of peace and order? In comes the pieces of body parts and they order the investigation. We know why the most famous division of the police is Scene Of the Crime Operative. The call center is a burgeoning industry that sends its employees in the most wicked hours where there are no police officers and if there were, could turn out to be the criminals themselves. 

Here's another, Congress before recess (as if it needed more) debated over house bill 6052 (?) , something to do with lowering juvenile criminal liability from 18 to 12.  HB 6052 was prompted by media reports on rampant shenanigans committed with audacity right in the busy highway of EDSA by out-of-school youth gangs alternately called 'Bakal Boys' , 'Car Wash' and 'Tropang Rugby' .  One very graphic footage captured a taxi driver in mid morning traffic assaulted by a boy, probably no more than 15 whose cohorts, meantime, grabbed the cabbie's earnings. It was a stunning depiction of lawlessness. The inability of the police force to put a stop on the syndicates operating these 'crews' or formulate strategies to bust the gangs hanging out in the peripheries of EDSA have come down to congress making laws to jail children.

Speaking of EDSA, DPHW and MMDA are thinking of renovating the whole stretch. Not a bad idea, except time and again these agencies have shown they cannot handle the consequent traffic jams. 

Now toll on highways are another matter. It's just weird that people pay taxes so roads can be built. Then government builds roads but exact toll which would be a tax on the tax. On top of that, government levies a tax on the tax of a tax.

So BIR is going to put an eagle eye on doctors and lawyers. What about the Forbe's list? What about the congressmen and senators lining up their pockets with their Priority Development Fund?

The Coed is dead because among other factors, some non-existent NGO got funds that could have gone to her education.