A House leader Tuesday took exception to Finance Secretary Gary Teves daring lawmakers opposing the proposed tax-stamp proposal to challenge it before the Supreme Court, saying his action is inappropriate and unwarranted.

House Deputy Speaker Eric Singson said it is part of the job of Congress to conduct inquiries into actions of government.

“It is uncalled for to say that we and concerned individuals should go to the Supreme Court to question their decision. Congress proceeded to make an inquiry precisely to look into the action of the DoF regarding SICPA and we came out with various concerns,” said Singson.

He said Teves should not resent solons for conducting a congressional scrutiny of the tax stamp proposal being pushed forward by Switzerland-based SICPA Product Security SA (SICPA).

“We are just doing our job to look into contracts that are onerous and detrimental to the government and the public,” said Singson.

It is the committee members’ belief that such kind of imposition is subject to congressional approval, according to Singson.

“If not, who will stop them from increasing the imposition to say P1 to collect P40 billion as payment to SICPA instead of P20 billion as proposed by SICPA,” he said.

The SICPA TRACE system proposal will involve the application to tobacco products of tamper-proof strip stamps using a combination of data matrix code and fuse-on features; and installation in the premises of tobacco manufacturers of scanning and activation software to monitor the number of tobacco products produced.

The proposal came under heavy criticisms from members of the House committee on ways and means for its burdensome cost that would eventually be passed on to consumers.

Rep. Exequiel Javier (Lone District, Antique), committee chairman, said the cost of collecting stamps should be deducted from the excise tax revenue. “Otherwise the proposal, effectively, is raising revenue which the Bureau of Internal Revenue cannot do through build-operate-transfer. It is only Congress who can pass a revenue raising measure,” Javier said.