Tax reform to work...

of Marawi City.

Aside from Marawi City, Dominguez said the government needs sources of funding for the new law mandating free tuition and other school fees for all public tertiary institutions, which still has no clear funding mechanism yet. “I assure you we will not compromise on fiscal discipline and court runaway debts to please populist demands,” Dominguez said.

He said that while pursuing tax reform, the government will also continue reforming its main revenue agencies — the Bureaus of Internal Revenue (BIR) and of Customs.

As a result of the administrative reforms now being put in place in these two agencies, Dominguez said the BIR posted a 9.32 percent increase in collections from January to July against the same period last year, while that of the Customs improved 11.48 percent in the same period.

Dominguez said that one year into the administration’s term, opinion polls show that people “are as optimistic as they have ever been,” which, he said, is a “vote of confidence” in the leadership of President Duterte.

“We treat that as inspiration to work harder and deliver better,” he said. “We want to provide the governance our people deserve.”

In his message, Dominguez also commended economic journalists for “performing with fairness and competence” and for being “very helpful in building the financial and economic literacy of our people.”

“Such broad-based literacy is indispensable as we struggle to achieve inclusive growth in a participatory society,” Dominguez said.