Gordon: No to tax on text; yes to levy on telcos

Senator Richard J. Gordon (Ind.) today stressed that he is against the proposal of a five-centavo tax on text messages and instead pushed for a levy on the income of telecommunications companies (telcos) from local text messaging.

Gordon said he opposes House Bill 6625, which seeks to impose a five-centavo tax on every short and multimedia message, because it would be an additional burden on mobile phone users.

"Ayoko ng tax on text. Ang gusto ko ay kunin ang 10% ng kita ng mga telcos sa text messaging. Masyado ng malaki ang kita ng mga telcos at yun ang hinahabol natin dito. Pero ang aking proposal ay sa loob lang ng limang taon at hindi ito pwedeng ipasa sa tao," he said.

The senator explained that his bill, Senate Bill 2402, seeks to create the Health and Education Acceleration Program (HEAP) Corporation that would spearhead the rehabilitation of the public education and health care systems of the country by requiring telcos to remit a portion of their net revenues from local text messaging.

Gordon said the telecommunications industry is one of the biggest and fastest-growing industries in the country, noting that the number of mobile phone subscribers has rapidly increased from 34,600 in 1991 to 72 million at present.

"There are two billion text messages a day. Sa kanila na yung 90% na kita, ang hinihingi ko lang ay 10% or 200 million a day. Kapag nakita ng tao na ito ay gagamitin para sa edukasyon at kalusugan, siguradong susuportahan nila ito," he said.

"These telecommunications companies grew exponentially because of the millions of Filipinos who used their services. It is just right that they give back in a manner substantial enough that it will end our problems with public education," he added.

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) officer-in-charge Augusto Santos supported the imposition of a levy over a tax during the Development Budget Coordination Committee briefing and the budget hearing for NEDA, respectively.