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We should start watching these guys Camacho and Banez closely. Last year, on Oct. 5, 2001, Jose Isidro Camacho, secretary of finance, on recommendation of Rene G. Banez, commissioner of internal revenue, promulgated Revenue Regulations No. 17-2001. Now that is a most subversive document, if I ever saw one.

Subversive because it runs against the natural tendency of the government bureaucracy to insert itself into every possible activity of private activity in order to justify its existence and its annual drain on the public coffers as well as to provide its less scrupulous members with the opportunity to augment their admittedly meager salaries. It aims to cut red tape and tries to relieve the private sector of the burden of complying with useless requirements. A congressional investigation should be conducted to determine whether Rene Banez and his crew at the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and their boss, Jose Isidro Camacho, are fit to run the place.

Systematically, they are breaking down the system that was laboriously put in place in order to make difficult private sector participation in socialized housing and in the community mortgage program. Before Camacho and Banez went to work, the tax incentives and exemptions offered by law to the private sector can be availed of only after the project developer has submitted a long list of documents and, mind you, after an inspection of the property and verification has been made of who the actual occupants and qualified participants are. Applications had to be submitted to the Revenue District Officer where the property was located and the Revenue District Officer himself had to conduct the inspection and verification. He did nothing about his findings, but in true bureaucratic tradition, transmitted his report to his superiors. In his own sweet time, he forwarded the application and supporting documents, together with his inspection report, to the Law Division at the central office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, for review and processing for tax exemption purposes. That is beautiful classic bureaucratism.

Comes now Revenue Regulations No. 17-2001. It dispenses with the requirement of prior inspection and verification. Instead, all that is needed is a certification by the President of the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMFC) that the corporation had done its due diligence in assessing the project and was satisfied that the project qualifies under the community mortgage program. On the basis of that certification (plus, of course, proof of payment of the relevant documentary stamp tax and a severely shortened list of documents under Section 5 of the regulations), the Revenue District Officer, within five days from compliance of requirements, has to issue the tax clearance that paves the way for the registration of the property.

That is all wrong.

In the first place, why issue the tax clearance in five days? That is too fast. It is a law of nature that paper moves slowly and the length at which a piece of paper stays on a bureaucrat’s desk is indicative of that bureaucrat’s worth to the system. Government approvals must always be slow in coming. Otherwise, people would think the matter is not important and the bureaucrat issuing the approval inconsequential.

Secondly, why give full faith and credit to the NHMFC’s certification? Does not the Camacho-Banez duo know that the name of the game is distrust? Distrust is the reason why Congress conducts investigations at the drop of a hat. Distrust is the reason why courts readily issue their temporary restraining orders (TROs). No one is supposed to trust anybody around here, you know, particularly fellow so-called public servants. By taking the NHMFC’s certification at face value, the BIR lost a veritable source of value.

Sure, the BIR retained the right to conduct post-registration verification and post-audit verification of compliance by the project. But by the time the BIR gets around to doing its thing, the land has been transferred, the project must have gone underway and the occupants must have already moved in. Surely, the duo knows that post-verification and post-audit have no sting. They are completely harmless against those who actually follow the law.

So, by issuing Revenue Regulations No. 17-2001, what are these whiz kids up to? What are trying to do, anyway? Move the country forward? My gosh, collar these guys Camacho and Banez. Off with their heads! They do not belong.

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