It’s just the second month of the year but already, an assortment of both man-made and natural misfortunes have come our way. The top two most pressing issues in our midst are the continuing restiveness of the majestic Mt. Mayon and the effects in the implementation of the TRAIN (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) Law.
We have yet to feel the full impact of TRAIN implementation in our day-to-day existence. This early, however, vehicle owners are already feeling its effects with the seemingly unceasing increase in the prices of petroleum products. TRAIN is not only the cause of the rise. Major oil players point to the upward adjustments in the prices of oil per barrel in the international market. The peso depreciation, too, has influenced the hike in the pump prices in the domestic market. Wait ‘til the transport sector, which like Mt. Mayon is, also, restive, demands higher fare.
The specter of a domino effect on the prices of basic commodities is facing us consumers as illustrated by my tax guru, my neighbor, Dr. Milwida Guevara in her column Wednesday. Ms. Nene, as we business journalists call her, breaths taxation. She was the person behind the 1997 Comprehensive Tax Reform Package (CTRP). She was finance undersecretary then. The CTRP is the precursor of the TRAIN law that is now chugging down our daily lives with its smoke billowing, affecting our subsistence.
Lest we forget, there are three more of the TRAIN cars coming our way – packages 2, 3, and 4 which Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez unveiled at the general membership meeting of the Management Association of the Philippines a couple of weeks ago.
Although, I recoil at the sting of the black smoke the TRAIN emits, I agree with certain reservations that it is a bitter pill we have to take to support the government’s “Build, Build, Build” program. The government needs to get these major infrastructure projects going, a vital component in pushing the domestic economy to the next level, keep it up to speed with the rest of the economies in the region.
Good road networks are essential in bringing products from the source to the distributors to the consumers. This may be the rationale behind the move of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) President Ramon S. Ang to venture into the another construction project. The visionary that he is, Mr. Ang took another leap with the construction of a new expressway designed to link the north and the south. At the onset of the year, SMC-Citra, in partnership with the government, disclosed it will carry out the first phase of the Southeast Metro Manila Expressway, otherwise known as C6. The interconnection spans 34 kilometers from Skyway/FTI (Food Terminal, Inc.) to Batasan.
While SMC’s bottomline is most desirable to bankroll the estimated P45- billion project cost, the conglomerate is set to tap the market to issue debt instruments.
The issuance of the debt securities will be done by drawing from its shelf-registration filed before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in September last year amounting to P60 billion. SMC has yet to satisfy the full amount of the shelf-registration, there’s still a balance of P30 billion.
BDO Capital and Investments Corporations, BPI Capital Corporation, ING Bank, China Bank Capital Corporations, First Metro Investments Corporation, Security Bank Capital Investment Corporation, and Standard Chartered Bank have been engaged to underwrite the offering with tenors of 5-7-10 years.
“By any standard San Miguel has the money. The prevailing low interest regime, however, is ripe for the SMC to tap the market for an issue for re-financing,” says a banking source.
Let us not be overwhelmed by the incredible gridlocks that we have to brace up for arising from all these Build, Build, Build projects. Looking ahead, they will ease the ride around the metropolis. And, more importantly, they will diminish the supply bottleneck.
No pain, no gain.
Talk back to me at sionil731@gmail.com
We have yet to feel the full impact of TRAIN implementation in our day-to-day existence. This early, however, vehicle owners are already feeling its effects with the seemingly unceasing increase in the prices of petroleum products. TRAIN is not only the cause of the rise. Major oil players point to the upward adjustments in the prices of oil per barrel in the international market. The peso depreciation, too, has influenced the hike in the pump prices in the domestic market. Wait ‘til the transport sector, which like Mt. Mayon is, also, restive, demands higher fare.
The specter of a domino effect on the prices of basic commodities is facing us consumers as illustrated by my tax guru, my neighbor, Dr. Milwida Guevara in her column Wednesday. Ms. Nene, as we business journalists call her, breaths taxation. She was the person behind the 1997 Comprehensive Tax Reform Package (CTRP). She was finance undersecretary then. The CTRP is the precursor of the TRAIN law that is now chugging down our daily lives with its smoke billowing, affecting our subsistence.
Lest we forget, there are three more of the TRAIN cars coming our way – packages 2, 3, and 4 which Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez unveiled at the general membership meeting of the Management Association of the Philippines a couple of weeks ago.
Although, I recoil at the sting of the black smoke the TRAIN emits, I agree with certain reservations that it is a bitter pill we have to take to support the government’s “Build, Build, Build” program. The government needs to get these major infrastructure projects going, a vital component in pushing the domestic economy to the next level, keep it up to speed with the rest of the economies in the region.
Good road networks are essential in bringing products from the source to the distributors to the consumers. This may be the rationale behind the move of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) President Ramon S. Ang to venture into the another construction project. The visionary that he is, Mr. Ang took another leap with the construction of a new expressway designed to link the north and the south. At the onset of the year, SMC-Citra, in partnership with the government, disclosed it will carry out the first phase of the Southeast Metro Manila Expressway, otherwise known as C6. The interconnection spans 34 kilometers from Skyway/FTI (Food Terminal, Inc.) to Batasan.
While SMC’s bottomline is most desirable to bankroll the estimated P45- billion project cost, the conglomerate is set to tap the market to issue debt instruments.
The issuance of the debt securities will be done by drawing from its shelf-registration filed before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in September last year amounting to P60 billion. SMC has yet to satisfy the full amount of the shelf-registration, there’s still a balance of P30 billion.
BDO Capital and Investments Corporations, BPI Capital Corporation, ING Bank, China Bank Capital Corporations, First Metro Investments Corporation, Security Bank Capital Investment Corporation, and Standard Chartered Bank have been engaged to underwrite the offering with tenors of 5-7-10 years.
“By any standard San Miguel has the money. The prevailing low interest regime, however, is ripe for the SMC to tap the market for an issue for re-financing,” says a banking source.
Let us not be overwhelmed by the incredible gridlocks that we have to brace up for arising from all these Build, Build, Build projects. Looking ahead, they will ease the ride around the metropolis. And, more importantly, they will diminish the supply bottleneck.
No pain, no gain.
Talk back to me at sionil731@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment