RP leader presses to pass tax law

RP leader presses to pass tax law

MANILA: President Gloria Arroyo on Monday urged Congress to pass a key tax measure as well as the 2005 national budget to avoid a potential debt crisis for the Philippines in the near future.

"The clock is ticking. There's no time to waste," she said in a speech to Filipino businessmen less than two weeks after the country suffered a double-notch downgrade of its sovereign credit ratings due to its debt burden.

Manila needs to borrow US$4 billion this year to fill the financing gap and the downgrades, by Moody's Investors Service, raised the cost of those borrowings.

Congress has dragged its foot on the 907.6 billion-peso (US$16.59 billion) 2005 budget as well as most of the components of a package of tax reforms proposed by Arroyo last year aimed at increasing annual revenues by 80 billion pesos. -- AFP