MANILA, Philippines – Congress is set to look into the performance of revenue officials by virtue of a law passed in 2005 which the government admitted has not been implemented.
“We would like to inform you that we will soon activate the joint congressional committee,” House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said during a hearing by the House ways and means committee Monday.
He was pertaining to a provision of Republic Act 9335 or the Lateral Attrition Law, which lays out penalties and rewards against officials and employees of the Bureaus of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Customs.
The law allows for the convening of a joint oversight committee composed of members from the House of Representatives and Senate to evaluate the BIR and Customs performance in collecting revenues.
Under the measure, employees and officials may be terminated by a revenue performance evaluation board if he or she is proven to have committed negligence in his or her duty that caused the government to miss its revenue targets.
Rewards and incentives, meanwhile, are given to those who will exceed their goals.
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The board is chaired by the Department of Finance with the Department of Budget and Management and the National Economic and Development Authority as its voting members.
In Monday’s hearing, Alvarez asked the DOF if the law has been implemented in recent years given the government’s consistent budget deficit or the gap between spending and revenues.
To this, BIR deputy commissioner Nestor Valeroso answered: “My understanding is that the in the initial years, it was implemented. Unfortunately now, that is no longer the case.”
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez also said he is “not familiar” with the law and that he would need to review it and submit a report to Congress “in two weeks.”
BIR and Customs, which account for more than 90 percent of state revenues, set annual collection targets which are allocated to their revenue district offices and ports, respectively.
