“Here are what you notice.”
Among the most important achievements of Rodrigo Roa Duterte, seven stand out. Because of these accomplishments alone, he can claim to have been a good president.
1. Tax reform under Finance Minister Sonny Dominguez, which made the Philippines one of the fastest growing economies in Asia.
2. Build, build, build, under the Secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Mark Villar, who has increased infrastructure spending to an average of 5.14 percent of GDP, Fidel Ramos 1.7 percent; Joseph Estrada 1.62 percent; Gloria Arroyo 1.5 percent; and Benigno Aquino III 2.7 percent.
Duterte has put more money into infrastructure – over six trillion pesos in six years – than any president before him. In the last five years alone, the DPWH built 145,000 classrooms, 2,000 school buildings, 5,555 bridges and 26,500 kilometers under Villar. of roads, access roads, expressways and toll roads.
3. Transport modernization under the Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Art Tugade, which made mass transport safe, reliable and available.
Tugade increased the RoRo traffic routes from 120 (with 223 ships and 2.8 million vehicles) in 2016 to 181 by 2020. It plans a further 41 to serve 325 ships and 4.8 million vehicles.
Art has completed more than 200 airport projects, 400 seaports and 21 new lighthouses to reach 564 lighthouses. New airport terminals were built for Mactan, Clark, Ormoc and Kalibo. Bicol Airport was reopened after an 11-year delay.
The number of airports with night tariffs increased from 14 in 2016 to 20 by June 2021.
NAIA went from being one of the worst airports in the world to one of the most improved by 2018. The laglag-bala racket that NAIA passengers suddenly had bullets in their luggage (an excuse for huge blackmail) stopped completely.
The art has started to build the impossible – a subway on EDSA.
4. Free higher education for everyone with 1.6 million people attending by 2020, 36 percent more than in 2019.
Says Duterte: “We have Filipinos access to quality and equal higher education through RA No. 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, which I signed on August 3, 2017.”
This law provides various financial support and scholarships for beneficiaries at state universities and colleges and local universities and colleges (SUCs and LUCs). This law institutionalized, among other things, the free higher education (FHE), the university grant (TES), the student loan program and the free technical and vocational education (TVET).
5. An independent foreign policy
Manila turned to Beijing without losing Washington’s friendship and support. The US was forced to return the Samar balangiga bells, confiscated from the US Army as a war trophy after locals wiped out an entire regiment of 48 infantry and wounded 78 other American soldiers. The Philippines had demanded the return of the bells that signaled the Filipino rebels to attack the US GIs.
6. Duterte reduced red tape for the masses and made oligarchs on the line.
Of course, crime declined under Duterte, but extrajudicial killings increased. Now the president is threatened with charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Our Supreme Court has ordered Duterte to work with the ICC.
7. Universal health care. Insurance coverage was expanded from 90 percent of the population to 100 percent.
COVID-19 proved too complex to contain, despite the fact that there were 9,000 new treatment facilities with a capacity of 140,000 beds and 36 million vaccines arriving. A Filipino disease control center is planned and a virology institute is under construction.
“Thanks to Congress and our revenue-generating agencies, our tax reforms supported our economic growth from the third quarter of 2016 to the fourth quarter of 2019, making the Philippines one of the fastest growing economies in Asia until the scourge of the pandemic,” Duterte said in his SONA on July 26, 2021.
Important tax reform measures in Duterte’s first five years:
–RA No. 10963 Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act of December 19, 2017, provides substantial income tax cuts for the majority of Filipino taxpayers, while raising additional funds to support accelerated government spending on their “build, build, Build ”and social program.
– RA # 11213 Tax Amnesty Act, February 14, 2019 – provides taxpayers with a unique opportunity to settle an inheritance tax amnesty program that provides reasonable tax relief to inheritances with outstanding inheritance tax liabilities
–RA No. 11346 Tobacco Tax Act, July 25, 2019, increases excise taxes on tobacco products (e.g. cigars, cigarettes) and is subject to the excise tax and regulation of heated tobacco products and steam products, popularly known as electronic cigarettes.
–RA No. 11467 Sin Tax Law, January 22, 2020, increased taxes on alcoholic beverages and electronic cigarettes.
In 2019, Duterte achieved the highest tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product, 16.1 percent with an average rate from 2016-2019 of 15.3 percent, of 14 percent under Benigno Aquino III and 14.1 percent under Gloria Arroyo.
On March 26, 2021, Duterte signed Law RA No. 11534, or the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE), the second package under our CTRP. CREATE is the largest corporate fiscal incentive in recent history, designed to provide private companies with tax breaks worth more than 1 trillion pesos over the next 10 years.
In addition, CREATE is a boon for MSMEs with the reduction in the corporate tax rate from 30 percent to 20 percent, the largest cut in the country to date. This law streamlines tax incentives and creates an improved incentive package that is performance-based, time-bound, targeted and transparent.
When Duterte came to power in 2016, he immediately ordered all authorities and agencies to respond to public inquiries and concerns within 15 days.
The enactment of RA No. 11032 or Law on the Facilitation of Business and Efficient Provision of Government Services (EODB Act) and the recent enactment of RA No. 11517 which allows us to meet national and local permit requirements for quick Suspending responding to national emergencies enabled my government to provide world class services to our compatriots while making the Philippines the country of choice for investment.
Under Duterte, the Philippines improved from 14th in 2019 to 95th in 2020 in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report.
The administration made it easier to quickly issue state-sanctioned permits and licenses.
Since it came into force in August 2016, the LGUs have increasingly complied with the standards of the Revised Business Permit and Licensing Systems (BPLS), a joint venture between DILG, DTI and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). From 2017 to June 2021, more than 7.50 million commercial enterprises were registered.
To put an end to the endless public queuing in office, the administration launched the Central Business Portal (CBP) (www.business.gov.ph) on January 28, 2021.
This initiative took a nationwide approach as it linked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Social Services and LGUs to allow applicants to complete their business registrations on one website. Average company registration turnaround time has been reduced from 33 days to 7 days.
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