“Six will Fix!” against “Katas ng VAT”

Youth Against Debt’s (YAD) press briefing and photo op yesterday [08 June 2008] against the P1-billion “Katas ng VAT” dole-outs of the Arroyo administration for education came out in BusinessMirror (Page 1), Manila Bulletin (Page 15), GMANews.TV (Photo) and Tumbok (Photo).

Tumbok
09 June 2008, Page 4
Photo by Nino Orbeta (Philippine Daily Inquirer)

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.