Pimentel Questions Transparency of BIR’s ‘Resibo’ Raffle Promo

MANILA — Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Nene” Q. Pimentel,
Jr. (PDP-Laban) today asked finance and revenue
authorities to exercise transparency in sponsoring the
“Premyo sa Resibo Raffle Project” to make it an
effective means of encouraging the public to demand
receipts for products that they purchase and services
rendered, as well as of preventing commercial
establishments from shortchanging the government of
the sales taxes due that they should pay and remit.

Pimentel said the Department of Finance and Bureau of
Internal Revenue must be commended for launching this
promotional project in mid-2006 which is intended to
boost tax collection drive and plug the tax leaks due
to non-issuance of receipts and misdeclaration of
sales.

However, he said the “Premyo sa Resibo Raffle Project”
is in danger of losing steam and of failing to meet
its goal if the public is not informed about the
winners of the raffle and how much cash prizes they
have won for each draw.

Noting that the newspapers and broadcast networks do
not bother to carry the results of every raffle draw,
Pimentel said “that is the problem because any
government project, to be backed up by the people must
be known to the people.”

Under the rules of the contest, a consumer should text
to the BIR, using his or her own cellphone, the
taxpayer identification number and amount of purchase
appearing in the sales receipt.

Pimentel said he was told that the entries to the
raffle contest had already reached almost 92 million
as of last week.

But Pimentel said that since the results of the raffle
are not publicized, the participating consumers have
no way of knowing who are the winners.

“Apparently, there is no transparency as to who won.
How can the public interest in the raffle project be
sustained if the names of the winners are not
disseminated through the media?” he said.

The minority leader said the BIR should have a way of
quantifying the incremental increase in tax revenue
collection as a result of the raffle contest to
determine if it is really succeeding.

“That will be helpful especially in terms of telling
the people that ‘this is a project that you can
support and this is the effect of the project.’ In
other words, between the dream and the fulfillment,
there must be an assurance from our government and
that it is producing the desired results,” he said.

Unless such information is made available to the
public, Pimentel said the “Premyo sa Resibo Raffle
Project” will just be like the “How is My Driving”
campaign of transportation authorities in which the
people are encouraged to call up a certain phone
number of the Land Transportation Office to provide
mechanism for giving feedback.

“I have called that number maybe 30 times, but it does
not answer. It is the kind of promo drive by some of
our agencies that really adds to the frustration of
the ordinary citizens,” he said.

Pimentel noted that under the BIR raffle contest, a
consumer is charged P1.50 for texting every entry and
this cellphone charge is credited to the service
company.

In response to Pimentel’s request, BIR Commissioner
Lilian Hefti promised to submit a complete list of the
winners of the raffle contest, together with the cash
prizes they have won and the dates of the
corresponding draws.

If the “Premyo sa Resibo Raffle Project” is to attract
more participants and to ensure it does not fizzle
out, Pimentel said the BIR should find a way whereby
the media will regularly carry the list of winners of
raffle draws as is being done for the results of daily
on-line lotto draws.
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