There will be no new taxes and special investigative commissions under a new Erap administration.

Former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, who is seeking a fresh term after his ouster from power by an uprising in 2001, said he favors “honest to goodness tax collection rather than impose new taxes to the already heavily-taxed Filipinos.”

Estrada, the standard-bearer of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) political party, said he would rather go after tax cheats especially big tax evaders than impose new taxes which could further burden the poor.

On the other hand, the former President said he sees no need in creating new commissions of enquiry to prosecute government officials’ abuses.

“In the case of private armies of politicians, they are illegal per se so there is no need to form a commission. You just have to order the chief of the Philippine National Police or the Armed Forces of the Philippines to dismantle them,” Estrada said in press briefing in Balayan, Batangas last Tuesday.

He was reacting to Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s plan to form a commission that would investigate the alleged crimes of President Arroyo during her term.

He said new investigative bodies would only prove useless noting the “total failure” of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to recover the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the family and cronies of the late President Ferdinand Marcos.

The PCGG was created by Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon Aquino shortly after Marcos was ousted from power in 1986.

Estrada said he was already about to abolish the PCGG but he was ousted from power.

“That (new commission) will only delay (the proceedings) and that will be another source of corruption,” Estrada said noting the corruption charges filed against PCGG officials.