A Shylock streak in Henares?

Medical practitoners, doctors in particular, are gravely concerned with the shame campaign being conducted by the Bureau of Internal Revenue against physicians. The BIR has made the campaign public in its half-page ads that have appeared in the Inquirer and other newspapers. We object to the sweeping, unfair and derogatory depiction of physicians, in those ads, as tax cheats.

There maybe a few tax evaders in our ranks, but why paint in a bad light all doctors and the entire profession? The Philippine Medical Association (PMA) would appreciate any help to identify these culprits so that they can be removed from the roster of our organization. If the BIR has proof, as Commissioner Kim Henares says, what is keeping the agency from filing the appropriate cases against our misbehaving colleagues and spare the rest of us who religiously pay our tax obligations?

The BIR ad cited one Marjorie Villena as a physician who earned more than P1 million but paid only P7,424 (0.7 percent) in taxes. A check with the PMA showed that of its 73,000 members, there is no one by that name.

This year, the BIR is reportedly assigned a collection target of P1.456 trillion, which is 20 percent higher than its collection last year. Indeed, big money is mandatory to run a good government and a much bigger amount is required to run a corrupt government. Henares is under pressure to collect and collect taxes for the government. Obviously, she is trying hard to do just that. But can’t she do it with transparency, civility and justice?

Also, Assistant Commissioner Marissa Cabreros has said that, in Makati City, many doctors are not paying the right amount of taxes. Since most prominent doctors are with the Makati Medical Center, the allusion is a slur to this ideal group of physicians who are among the best in the country and noted to be very ethical professionally.

New BIR policies mandate hospitals to collect the standard professional fees directly from patients’ payments—that is, 15 percent plus 10-20 percent VAT—before they are released to the physicians. After all these years of withheld tax payment, I have never heard of the BIR refunding doctors who overpay the 15-percent. In the United States, I paid only 10 percent in withheld taxes and I got refunds; here in the Philippines, it’s 15 percent, yet I haven’t received any refunds.

Moreover, practitioners are not allowed “Free Services.” If relatives, friends or charity patients are treated for free, such gratis et amore service has to be supported by an affidavit.

What other humiliating, disgraceful and restrictive method will the BIR impose next? As it is now, the BIR is pulling out of bed innocent people and executing them on trumped-up charges; the cruel nightmare this promises is the slow, systematic, consistent taking away of our rights. What tyranny!

It is said that the best tax collectors are those with “Shylock” personalities, obsessed with the joy of biting and collecting the “pound of flesh” they can collect from their victims until there is no more to give. Does Henares belong to this tribe? If so, there is a way for her to be a saint: Resist the urge. St. Matthew, a tax collector, became a saint by shunning that obsession.

Commissioner, please be kind to doctors.

—SANTIAGO A. DEL ROSARIO, MD, former PMA president