THE Senate is set to work on remedial legislation abolishing the Marcos-era travel-tax imposition as soon as Congress reconvenes plenary session next month.
Senate Bill 1841, filed by Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, seeks to annul the 42-year-old presidential decree issued following the imposition of martial law requiring Filipinos traveling abroad to pay the tax before boarding.
In seeking the tax repeal, especially for travelers bound for countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Pimentel pointed out it should have been in effect since November 2002, “following the signing of the regional intergovernmental tourism agreement in which the Philippines is one of the signatories.”
The senator cited the Asean Tourism Agreement, noting that it already removed travel levies and taxes on nationals of member-states traveling within the region. “It has been almost 14 years since the Philippines signed the Asean Tourism Agreement, but as of date, travel taxes are still imposed upon individuals traveling to other Asean member-states,” he said.
Once enacted into law, Pimentel said the remedial legislation will “totally remove the imposition of travel tax on those who will depart to any other country around the globe.”
Asserting that the Filipinos’ right to travel abroad should not be burdened with the imposition of a tax, the senator recalled that the travel tax, which ranges from P300 to P2,700, was imposed to curtail unnecessary foreign travels and to conserve foreign exchange during martial law. Those conditions no longer prevail.
“It was first imposed in 1977 by then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos following the issuance of Presidential Decree 1183 in order to provide adequate funds for tourism-related programs and projects to enhance the country’s competitiveness as a major tourist destination,” Pimentel recalled.
The senator, however, took the position that traveling Filipinos, already paying a huge chunk of their salary to the national government via income tax, “should not be made to carry the additional burden” in providing funds for tourism facilities and infrastructure. “They should not be made to pay for the failure of the national government to provide state-of- the-art tourism facilities and infrastructure,” he added.
Moreover, Pimentel said Section 73 of Republic Act 9593, also known as the Tourism Act of 2009, already provides for alternative funding sources for the programs funded by the travel tax in the event of a phaseout of travel tax collection following the enforcement of international agreements.
Instead, Pimentel proposed that agencies receiving proceeds from travel tax collections such as the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza), Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) to directly receive the necessary funding from the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
He took the view that “the percentages of travel tax allocated for CHED, even if the law states that priority should be given to tourism-related educational programs and courses, and for NCAA, are unnecessary since these are not connected to traveling.”
Image credits: Nonie Reyes