BY CHARISSA LUCI-ATIENZA
The House Committee on Ways and Means has vowed to pass “by hook or by crook” a measure seeking to protect the remittances of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from usurious interest rates and fees charged by financial institutions.
Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda, chairperson of the panel, assured Deputy Speaker and Pampanga 3rd District Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr. that his panel will prioritize on Tuesday, Sept. 1, the approval of House Bill No. 826 or the proposed Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) Remittance Protection Act, which the latter principally authored.
“On Tuesday, the first thing is we will approve your bill by hook or by crook. We will override the DOF (Department of Finance), and all the other players around because it is time to make our OFWs real heroes,” he said in a recent virtual meeting of the panel.
The Salceda panel decided to defer approval of the measure subject to refinements after it was disclosed that such proposal would result in P1.4 billion revenue loss on the part of the government.
During the panel’s virtual deliberation on August 24, Salceda noted that based on the computations provided, the revenue impact of the remittance discounting proposal would amount to P4.5 billion, P3.1 billion of which will be borne by remittance companies, while the remaining P1.4 billion would be the government’s revenue loss.
The Association of Remittance Company Compliance Officers – Philippines Inc. expressed its opposition to Gonzales’s measure, saying that it would result in higher administrative cost, tedious implementation, and weakened state of competition among remittance players.
The Association of Bank Remittances Officers Inc. said it would be administratively difficult to implement the proposed discounting scheme. Its president, Marlon Hernandez, told the Salceda panel that the technology and competition should be allowed to naturally bring down the cost of sending remittance. (Charissa Luci-Atienza)
