There are several proposed bills pending in the House of Representatives which seek to impose new taxes on tobacco and alcohol.

The reasons being given for the proposed amendment to Republic Act 9334 or ?An Act Increasing the Excise Tax Rates on Alcohol and Tobacco Products? are very confusing.

On one hand, proponents say that the proposed increased taxes will discourage consumption of what they term as ?sin products.? On the other hand, they say that they want to raise additional revenues for the government.

Legislators who are saying this should realize that they are contradicting themselves. It?s one or the other. How can you raise additional revenues if there is a marked decrease in consumption of cigarettes, beer and liquor?

Of course there is a third probable reason but no one among the proponents of the new taxes on ?sin products? will admit it. In the past, bills adverse to tobacco or alcohol companies had been filed not for anything else but to call the attention of these companies to ?talk? to them.

Your guess is as good as mine on what the real intentions of legislators pushing for the revision of the excise tax law on alcohol and tobacco are.

If the real reason is to raise additional revenues for the government, then our legislators should first review if this is not already addressed by RA 9334. The law already provides for increases every two years from 2005 to 2011. In fact, the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol products were just increased last month.

Tobacco and alcohol products are already the most heavily taxed products. No other products aside from these two have been subjected to regular tax increases since 2005.

Anti-smoking and anti-alcohol advocates will not even get their wish for reduced consumption of these products if taxes imposed on them are increased.

Based on the experience of other countries, what we?ll probably see is the increase of cigarette and alcohol products smuggling. This was the experience of countries such as United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden as well as US states like New York, New Jersey and Michigan where there were marked increases in cigarette smuggling after steep cigarette tax increases.

Canada and Sweden had to subsequently reduce excise tax on cigarette when cigarette smuggling activities increased after sizeable tax increases.

At present, the excise tax collected from the tobacco industry has been steadily increasing based on the automatic increase every two years. These excise taxes from tobacco as well as alcohol products are stable and predictable sources of revenue for the government.

The proposed increases in the current excise tax system for tobacco and alcohol products could well result in decreased tax collections.

As the saying goes, ?if it ain?t broke, why fix it?? I suppose ?fix? is the key word here and could explain why some legislators are so eager to amend a law that?s already working well.

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Irrigation is the key to increased rice production. Rice exporting countries like Vietnam and Thailand have surplus rice production not because their farmers are more efficient than Filipino farmers but because they have more irrigated land from water they get from the mighty Mekong River.

Sadly, efforts by the government to repair irrigation and drainage canals and thus increase the total area of rice land that can be irrigated has been obstructed by sore losers in the P1.4-billion bidding conducted by the National Irrigation Administration.

This has been the story of bidding for many crucial government projects. Many of these projects have been delayed because of protests by losing bidders who cannot accept that they have lost in the bidding or they have been disqualified.

In the case of the NIA bidding, the reports of a ?bidding scandal? and other anomalies in the bidding are premature since the bidding process has not yet been completed and the project has not been awarded to any of the qualified bidders.

Actually, the Bids and Awards Committee of the agency still has to complete the evaluation of the bids for the procurement of the irrigation repair equipment and it has not even started the post-qualification stage which is a necessary step before the award of the contract can be done.

It seems that all the noise about the alleged bidding anomalies at NIA is coming from disqualified bidders who have been disqualified because they failed to submit the necessary requirements.

Some bidders for government projects apparently still have not realized the strict requirements under RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Act for the submission of necessary documents. RA 9184 mandates a pass/fail system where any ?fail? mark automatically disqualified a bidder. The law makes no distinction for minor or major infractions. There is no discretion given to the bids and awards committee.

In the NIA?s bidding for hydraulic excavators and other equipment, seven companies submitted letters of intent in response to NIA invitation to bid published last December. These are: Maxima Machineries Inc., Civic Merchandising Inc., Transport Equipment Corp. (TEC), Wilan Merchandising Philippines, Transtar Corp., International Heavy Equipment Corp. and TKC Heavy Industries Corp.

Civic, Maxima, TEC and IHEC submitted their respective bids last Jan. 19. Wilan and Transtar backed out while TKC did not submit a bid or a letter of withdrawal.

After the committee evaluated the eligibility requirements, only two bidders, Civic and TEC, were found to have complied with the eligibility requirements. Maxima and IHEC were declared ineligible because they failed to submit their registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Maxima also submitted an expired business permit while IHEC submitted an expired tax clearance.

Maxima and IHEC filed a motion for reconsideration but the committee denied the appeal and reiterated that these companies? failure to submit their SEC registration certificates and other requirements such as business permits and tax clearance rendered them ineligible.

Following the provision of RA 9184, the committee returned the bids of Maxima and IHEC unopened. Disqualified bidder Maxima?s next move was to file a case against NIA, the NIA-BAC, TEC and Civic before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

Some issues have been raised in media on the bidding like alleged overprice which is ridiculous since the bids submitted by the qualified bidders are below the approved budget for the contract set by NIA.

Maxima is claiming that it could have offered a bid price 20 percent lower than those submitted by the qualified bidder but this claim could not be verified since his bid document was returned to Maxima unopened.

At the end of the day, what would be asked is whether Maxima failed to submit any of the documents required under the law. If it failed to submit any documents, then it only has itself to blame for its disqualification.

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Hanjin Heavy Industries is apparently getting away with many things including payment of a judgment debt to a local contractor.

On April 30, 2008 the Supreme Court came out with a 33-page decision in favor of a local contractor ordering Hanjin to pay more than P300 million. As per entry of judgment by the Supreme Court itself, the decision became final and executory on July 29, 2008.

However, on Jan. 19, the Supreme Court came out with a three-page resolution remanding the case to the Court of Appeals.

Perhaps Chief Justice Reynato Puno can look into this issue to make sure that the Filipino contractor is getting a fair treatment under the law.