Former president and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has welcomed President Aquino's suspension of the 12 percent value added tax (VAT) on toll.

"That's good," Mrs. Arroyo said when this reporter told her that Mr. Aquino had already suspended the government's plan to collect 12 percent VAT on toll which was supposed to take effect last Monday if not for a Supreme Court injunction.

Mr. Aquino said last Monday that he had suspended the planned collection of VAT on toll "as of last week," although the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and his spokesman in Malacañang had been pushing for the tax collection until the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) last Friday.

Mrs. Arroyo's spokeswoman, Elena Bautista-Horn, also welcomed Mr. Aquino's suspension of the plan to collect VAT on toll, and urged the government's economic managers to do "staff work" before recommending the collection of VAT and criticizing why the previous administration rejected such a recommendation.

Mrs. Arroyo, during her term as president, had twice rejected proposals from her Cabinet to collect 12 percent VAT from toll, as well as increase the fare of the metro rail transit (MRT), because of the inflationary effects that these proposals would bring to the economy.

Horn said Mrs. Arroyo, being an economist, had weighed the "negligible" profits that the government will get in exchange for the inflationary effects that increasing transportation expenses of workers will bring upon the economy.

She said Mrs. Arroyo was not trying to be popular when she rejected the recommendations to collect VAT on toll, although it turned out that the right thing to do was also the populist decision in the question of whether to collect VAT on toll.

She added that there were legal issues that are yet to be cleared in the proposal to collect VAT on toll, including the position of authors of the VAT law that toll is already a form of tax and could not be taxed anymore.

Also, Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio Arroyo criticized Malacañang’s statement that the Arroyo Administration was to blame for the negative public reception to the VAT on toll.

First, Arroyo said, “it was the Supreme Court who issued a temporary restraining order on the toll VAT and not the former president or any of her administration’s officials; “Second, Mrs. Arroyo did not ask the people to reject the VAT on toll. The people themselves rejected it; “Third, it was not the former president who explained the illegality and disadvantages of the VAT on toll and enlightened the mind of the public but, among others, allies of the Administration themselves,” the solon said.

Arroyo urged the Palace to first double-check his facts and review his law before maliciously maligning another individual to justify future blunders and public resentment against the Aquino Administration.

This developed as the militant transport group Pinag-isang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operaytors Nationwide (PISTON) denounced Malacañang's favorable stand on the implementation of the 233 percent toll rate increase at the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx).

PISTON Secretary General George San Mateo Tuesday reminded President Aquino that his true boss is the public and not the foreign investors of the SLEx, who claiming some P6 million income loss every day.

“We are disappointed with the President's statement that he prioritizes the implementation of the SLEx toll hike despite the issuance of a temporary restraining order against it. His recent pronouncement is clearly contradicting his earlier claim that the increase is high," San Mateo said.

He also blamed Transportation and Communications Secretary Jose de Jesus for allegedly backing the toll hike. De Jesus is concurrently the chairman of the Toll Regulatory Board that approved the South Luzon Tollway Corporation's new set of toll rates for the rehabilitated SLEx.

"We believe that it is DoTC Secretary De Jesus who is convincing the President to allow the implementation of the toll hike," he said, citing De Jesus' former job as president of the Manila North Tollways Corporation, the operator of the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx).