Payday Blues

Tomorrow comes another payday. Tomorrow, I will again come to realize the benefits of being a salaried man — the fixed wages, the automatic contributions to social security and health care. Tomorrow, I will again curse this fake regime for taking more than it’s supposed to take — the income taxes.

I understand the concept of taxation. I fully understand that I have bound myself to a social contract with this government. I concede that it is better be in a governed state that in lawless Somalia.

However, curses aside, I don’t feel the benefits of paying taxes to the government. Just last week as I applied for a student driver’s permit, five-hundred peso bills changed hands in the open among tax-paying citizens, fixers, and government employees at the local Land Transportation Office (LTO). Just last week, too, a young woman was shot in the head while police cars were parked in brightly-lit streets.

Where do our taxes go? Our taxes go somewhere, no doubt, since government-sponsored billboards and streamers shout in big, bold letters, “This is where your taxes go.”

No doubt about that. Our taxes go to line the pockets of government officials, elected and appointed. No doubt about that — the fertilizer scam, the NBN deal, the North Rail project, the Malacanang paper bag give-aways, the Hello Garci scandal… these all came from our taxes. (Ronald B. Escanlar/pinoypress.net)