DOF: Subsidies direct to homeowners instead of mass-housing developers

Instead of the Department of Finance giving subsidies to developers of mass housing units, the DOF is aims to provide subsidies directly to people themselves who want to avail of the government’s mass housing projects. Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said he simply believes direct subsidies is the best way to do it although he is not really against providing subsidies to the mass housing sector. “If we need to subsidize a particular group of people, I believe a direct subsidy is the best way to go about it," he said. Purisima said that the Finance department is considering lowering the rate charged by the Home Development Mutual Fund, otherwise known as the Pag-IBIG Fund or Pagtutulungan sa kinabukasan: Ikaw, Bangko, Industriya at Gobyerno. “We can lower the rate that Pag-IBIG charges, we can lend them under terms similar to Pag-IBIG or we can give direct subsidy to the target groups," he said. Ultimately, he wants the subsidies to be provided in a manner that would not be difficult for the DOF to implement. “What we want is something that will not complicate our collection effort in the revenue department. This is something we’d like to do long-term," he said. Pag-IBIG Fund is mandated to provide affordable shelter financing for Filipinos. The DOF disagrees with the Department of Trade and Industry’s Board of Investments (BOI) on the issue of providing incentives to mass housing projects. The BOI wants to provide incentives to the sector so that mass housing developers would lower their price and make houses more affordable to the people. The BOI wants to retain fiscal incentives to mass housing projects. In particular, the BOI wants the cap for mass housing projects retained at P2.5 million. This means that projects amounting to P2.5 million and below will get perks but developers want a higher cap of P3 million. The BOI was also considering exempting mass housing from the value-added tax. — MRT/VS, GMA Network