Angara backs text tax bill

SEN. Edgardo Angara endorsed Sen. Richard Gordon’s proposed “text-for-change” bill designed to improve education and health services nationwide.

Angara said Gordon’s measure was “one of the best ideas ever put forward” because it is a rescue plan for the youth.

The measure requires telecommunication companies to share part of their earnings from text messages to fund the program.

Although the plan requires a little bit of sacrifice on the part of telcos, Angara said it is one of the “most practicable and doable” things to help move the country forward.

“This is really a rescue plan for our youth in the same manner that there is a rescue plan for the world’s financial industry. I think it is more urgent because it is closer to home, to bail out our youth because the deterioration of our educational standards is not only ongoing but it is so rapid and accelerated as well,” he said.

Gordon anticipates more support from his colleagues in the Senate.

“I believe that the noble cause of the bill and the justifiable way in which we would implement it would be agreeable to other senators. Presented with a deplorable system of education and given an opportunity to improve it through our friends in the telcos, I believe my colleagues would accept this proposal,” he said. By: Bernadette E. Tamayo - Journal online