By Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today denounced the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for "dictating economic policies that call for an even heavier tax burden for the broad masses which." These policy impositions are bound to be implemented by the puppet Arroyo regime.
Through its information bureau, the CPP berated IMF resident representative Dennis Botman for unequivocably supporting a hefty increase in the Arroyo government's 2009 budget, with the bulk allotted to debt service and a so-called "economic stimulus package" comprised of huge "public investments."
Given the gargantuan national budget and the anticipated drop in tax collections due to the economic slowdown, Botman proposed to reduce the large budget deficit by increasing revenues through various means of increasing taxation. Botman's proposals include "streamlining" tax deductions for self-employed individuals and professionals, and raising so-called "sin taxes" on mass-consumed tobacco and alcohol.
The IMF was concerned that Arroyo's overspending would swell the budget deficit beyond the Fund's standard ceiling of 2% of the country's gross domestic product. "Yet, the IMF has shown no concern at all for the toiling masses who have been made to shoulder the burden of its impositions."
"The only thing the IMF is interested in is to ensure that the blood-sucking international finance capitalists, whose interests it serves, will be able to collect their pound of flesh at the expense of the poverty-stricken and debt-burdened masses," said the CPP.
"The IMF is hypocritically glossing over the fact that the biggest part of the bloated 2009 national budget is earmarked for servicing up to P700.6 billion in external debt. The amount eats up half of the P1.415-trillion national budget and accounts for 8.3% of the country's GDP," said the CPP.
Removing tax deductions and imposing new taxes would be a patently criminal act against a people already overburdened with the disastrous effects of Arroyo's EVAT and other antipeople economic policies and her unrelenting large-scale thievery, as well as the IMF's antinational impositions and other imperialist "globalization" policies, the CPP said.
The CPP urged the people to oppose the IMF's call for more taxes and block the US-Arroyo regime's steps to further exploit them and shift the burden of the crisis to them. It also called on the people to hold the Arroyo regime responsible for the economic crisis and expose the so-called "economic stimulus" package which will only provide more venues for the Arroyo ruling clique and their crony business partners to enrich themselves and build up Arroyo's slush fund for extending her rule beyond 2010.
