GOVERNOR SAYS
Negros to get add’l P3B
 annually with ‘sin’ taxes
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. yesterday said he favors the imposition of “sin” tax on tobacco and liquor in the Philippines as it will raise government revenues, and bring in an estimated additional P3 billion to Negros Occidental.

The Philippines has the lowest “sin” tax in the whole of Asia, and the highest is in Japan, he said.

Raising sin tax will not only bring in a lot of additional revenues to the government, its triggering a rise in tobacco and liquor prices will also curb consumption by teenagers, he said.

Task Group Arles yesterday released the facial sketches of the three gunmen involved in the killing of Kabankalan Regional Trial Court Judge Henry Arles in Ilog, Negros Occidental, and said it  hopes to unmask them soon.

The three were directly involved in the shooting of Judge Arles, based on the accounts of witnesses, who had seen them at the vicinity of the Kabankalan RTC, with two look-outs, one a woman, before  theshooting incident, Chief Inspector Rico Santotome, Task Force Arles spokesman, yesterday.

Numerous witnesses in the killing of Arles have come out to help in speed up the  resolution of the case to which  an influential clan in southern Negros,  has been linked as claimed by the National Bureau of Investigations.

Central Negros Electric Cooperative president, Arnel Lapore said yesterday that they will give a presentation of the actual state of the cooperative from 2004 to 2011 to justify to the oppositors, intervenors and the public the payments they have made to the generators, at the Energy Regulatory Commission consultation on their petition today.

Bayan will stage a picket outside CENECO while the ERC is conducting the hearing to oppose additional payments sought to be passed on to consumers.

ERC has set for hearing, the CENECO request for the Commission to allow it to collect under recoveries totaling P414.6 million, at the CENECO annex building at 9 a.m. today.