I am quite alarmed by the unprecedented increase of inflation of the country as revealed by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
As reported by PSA, formerly known as the National Statistics Office or NSO, the Philippines’ inflation or the increase in the prices of goods climbed to another 9-year high, hitting 6.4% in August. The latest figure was higher than July's 5.7%. According to some media outfits, this is also the fastest since March 2009, when inflation hit 6.6% during the Arroyo administration.
Annual increases were also observed in food and non-alcoholic beverages (8.5%), alcoholic beverages and tobacco (21.6%), furnishing and household equipment (3.5%), health (4%), restaurants and miscellaneous goods and services (4%), and recreation and culture (2.4%).
Throughout the country, Bicol Region had the highest inflation rate, which reached up to 9% while the Central Luzon had a mere 3.6% rate.
The inflation rate surged up after the country fully implemented the infamous Republic Act No. 10963, popularly known as the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law that increased the taxes imposed on goods, increasing the salaries of military and uniformed personnels, and relieving government employees receiving an annual salary of PHP 250,000.00 of paying taxes to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). Though it has been helpful on the part of the government employees, it has been a burden on the majority of the Filipinos who receive a mere (if not totally without) any amount that would alleviate the effects of the TRAIN Law.
As a government employee, I have been a beneficiary of the TRAIN Law being relaxed of paying an estimated amount of PHP 2,000.00 monthly (PHP 24,000.00 yearly) to BIR for my tax obligations since I receive almost PHP 22,000.00 salary from my work as a public school teacher. But even I don’t pay taxes anymore, the amount returned to me would still not be enough due to the soaring prices of commodities as an effect of TRAIN Law. It made me even realize that if it’s hard already for me to cope up with the domino effect of RA 10963, then it’s more difficult to my fellow Filipinos who are suffering from this high prices without any particular amount of return of investment to them.
I hope that the government should find its way to solve the uncontrollable rise of our inflation rate, instead of looking against its political dissenters and put them in the bars of prison cells.
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