"Let us increase not less than 40 billion pesos in additional funds that go to education, health,

social services, and many others because of the right and more efficient collection of taxes."

This was one of the promises President Benigno Aquino III spoke of during his fourth State of the
Nation Address (SONA). National budget has indeed been one of the hottest issues of this country. In
fact, anything that speaks of money is a big concern for Filipinos especially that the constant problem
here in the Philippines throughout generations is no other than corruption. For the past decades, the
increases in the national budget go mostly to the national defense or military services. Since poverty is a
very visible issue as well, there have been many programs made by past presidents up to the present just
to alleviate the state of poor Filipinos. In fact, the budget has initially increased in 2012 and is continually
increasing in the present giving social services the biggest share in the national budget.

This promise to increase the funds allocated for education, health, and social services would be a
big help to the social sectors and is favorable to the poor people. This is a good reply to the issues last
year regarding the budget cuts in the education and health department. It was really something the
Filipinos were not happy about. I, as a student would also not be happy if educational budgets will be cut
again since it means fewer budgets for state universities and colleges. That would be a very big burden
for us for tuition fees may also increase. I also agree that health services should be given a bigger budget
such that medicines will be cheaper and more affordable for the mass.

Let us move on to the social welfare programs made possible through this budget. Though the
4P's program as well as the housing programs were all helpful to the poor, still for me, I find this social
welfare program rather disadvantageous for it can possibly make the poor Filipinos dependent on the
government rather than putting their hopes in their efforts. More jobs would be a better program. As the
saying goes, "Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you'll feed
him for a lifetime."

All in all, the increase to the budget of social sectors is a positive move to be made by PNoy
administration.

In addition to this, let me scrutinize the last part of this promise he made. He said that all these
will be made possible through the right and more efficient collection of taxes. This is something I agree
and hope that will be realized. For the past decades, with corruption tagging along, tax collection has
been a vague issue as always. Transparency is quite questionable. The people strictly collected with
taxes are the minor masses who do hard labor to earn a living. On the other hand, people and
businessmen who earn millions and even billions have been rumored as exemptions to tax collection
rigidity. This issue is otherwise known as tax evasion. While the contractual do a tedious job each day to
pay their taxes well, those big-earners hide behind their desks. What a shame to those companies and
even those artists rumored with tax evasion. May their conscience be flooded with the cries of the hungry
Filipinos. Hopefully, tax evasion will no longer be existent this year especially for government workers and
officials and the big business tycoons in the country. Of course, we shouldn't exempt our foreign investors
for they are one of the biggest contributors in this countries profit. If only this last statement will be proven
true, then, monetary problems of the country will be slowly taken cared of.