Partylist lawmakers question tax reform law in SC

January 11, 2018

Partylist congressmen on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act or the TRAIN, saying the House of Representatives approved it without a quorum.

In a 34-page petition, the lawmakers, led by Bayan Muna Party List Rep. Carlos Zarate, asked the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order stopping the government from implementing TRAIN or Republic Act 10963, and declare it unconstitutional.

"There was grave abuse of discretion on the part of the respondent House leaders when they had the TRAIN Bicameral Conference Committee (BCC) Report ratified despite the glaring lack of quorum and several other violations of the Constitution and the House Rules insofar as it implements the Constitution," the petitioners stressed.

Section 16 (2), Article 6 of the 1987 Constitution and Section 75 of Rule XI of the House Rules both require the House to comply with the quorum requirement of majority of the House membership before they can do any legislative business.

The petitioners said only 10 lawmakers, including petitioners, were present during the ratification stage.

“There having been no quorum during the last three minutes of its December 13, 2017 session, the House of Representatives cannot legitimately and validly conduct any business, much less validly ratify the TRAIN Bicameral Conference Committee Report. Respondent House leaders therefore committed grave abuse of discretion when they disregarded the Constitution and the implementing House Rules with regard to the basic and prejudicial requisite of quorum,” they said.

Petitioners added there was, in effect, grave abuse of discretion also on the part of President Rodrigo Duterte when he signed the law not properly ratified by Congress.

"There was also grave abuse of discretion on the part of the President as he signed a document which is not a 'bill passed by Congress' and, therefore, has no effect as a bill subject to his approval under Section 27 (1) of Article VI of the 1987 Constitution," the petition stated.

The petition named Duterte and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and other House leaders as respondents, but did not include senators who approved the law.

The petitioners claimed the tax reform law, which cuts personal income tax rates while raising additional revenues for infrastructure and social services, doesn't help Filipinos.

“These sectors of our society will have zero and minimal benefits from the lowering of income taxes, because they are already exempt to begin with (in the case of minimum wage earners and those in informal work of earning low or erratic incomes) or whatever additional take-home pay they will have will not be enough for the higher cost of living.  However, they will be the ones who will bear the heaviest burden,” they said.

“They will not be able to afford the higher prices that these new taxes will cause, or will be able to only minimally offset these higher prices with what little additional finances they will get from the lowered PIT [personal income tax],” petitioners said. DMS