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Marcoses should pay P200B tax to mitigate fuel price impact: Isko

Manila mayor and presidential candidate Isko Moreno said on Wednesday, March 16, that government could mitigate the impact of the rising prices of fuel and electricity on the Filipino people if the Marcos family pays its “more than P200 billion tax liabilities”.

Moreno, in an ambush interview in Silay City, Negros Occidental, said he sympathizes with the plight of transport sector members in Negros who are staging a strike on March 21 and 22.

The Manila mayor, who said he used to be a pedicab driver, urged the government to act swiftly because the drivers and operators of public utility vehicles are suffering so much already.

Congress should reduce taxes on petroleum products to ease the burden on the Filipino people even before the next president is voted into office, he said.

Moreno said the Supreme Court judgment that the Marcos family owes more than P200 billion in estate tax liabilities is final and executory, and this has been confirmed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

They have received a copy of the Dec. 2, 2021 letter of BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay to the Marcos camp collecting payment of the taxes, Moreno said.

If the amount is not collected in five years it will prescribe and be waived, so if a member of the Marcos family wins the presidency and stays in power for six years the P200 billion will disappear, he said.

The Marcoses should pay the taxes they owe if they really love the Filipino people, and not find ways to avoid it, he said.

The ruling was with finality and they should follow the law, like the ordinary Filipino people who pay their taxes, he said.

Moreno said if he wins the presidency he will ensure the collection of the P200 billion that is the money of the Filipino people.

He said P135 billion could be used to mitigate the price of fuel and P65 million to ease the burden of the high prices of electricity on the people.

Moreno said he will focus on lowering the prices of fuel, electricity and basic commodities.

Government will buy the products of farmers to ensure that they make money and will then make them available to all at affordable prices, he said.

“Food security is the number one threat to national security,” he said.

The focus of his administration in the first two years of his presidency would be on life and livelihood, Moreno added.

Moreno said he expects the lives of the ordinary people to worsen in the coming days with rising prices of fuel.

He is the most qualified to be the next president of the country because he can get things done, as he has shown while mayor of Manila, Moreno said.

“I can get things done, there will be certainty and predictability in our rules,” he said, which will provide equal opportunities for all.

On the surveys showing him behind other presidential candidates, Moreno said the warm welcome of the people wherever he goes is the opposite of “whatever numbers they are showing to mind condition whomever they want”.

Moreno who campaigned in Silay and Bacolod cities was met by screeching supporters during his various stops.

He will be campaigning in Kabankalan City and Hinobaan town in southern Negros Occidental on Thursday.*

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