Arroyo told: Don’t use students to justify VAT

MANILA, Philippines – Two days before the formal opening of classes, members of Youth Against Debt (YAD) lambasted Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s additional P1-billion fund for students saying it is a cheap trick to use students and their accessibility problem to education as basis for the justification of the widely hated value-added tax (VAT).

In a statement, the youth group described Mrs. Arroyo’s VAT-powered Students Assistance Fund for Education for a Strong Republic, or “Safe for SR” as pure gimmickry, shallow and not enough to be of any ambulatory measure to help the students compensate for the rising cost of education.