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Election season has just officially began. The Philippine politicians are again promising sun, moon and stars. Binay, promised to:

1. Give free education to the poor - coincidentally I was just discussing this with my maid yesterday. I asked her how much she pays for her kids tuition fees. She said none. Just the projects and PTA fees. But many are still unable to study because they have no money to pay for this min amounts. Many choose to let their kids work to help the family.

Free na pala VP Binay. But still many are still uneducated.

May I suggest instead to:

- Pay the parents of the students. Give the students allowances based on the performance and attendance. Ban project fees and PTA fees. Impose zero extra payment requirements at school. What does this solve? 

-- Parents no longer need to force children to work. Their allowances is just like their salary. 

-- Children will be motivated to  study harder (with the parents' encouragement) due to the performance incentive

-- Give free food at school

Preventive measures:

-- Ensure to monitor attendance. 

-- Put a max cap in the failures. One student cannot fail more than 3x his school life. If he does, he will be subjected to investigation. If he is sincerely lacking then the government will move him to a vocational track. We will not abandon any child because we have to keep teaching a child no matter how slow

-- This benefit is only available to households earning < certain amount. 

2. Removing income tax of those earning below 30k. This is a dream. Which I also dreamed when I was just starting work. But how many percent of the current tax payers are below this line is this even feasible? 

Select sum(income) from taxpayers where income < 30000

May I suggest instead to implement tax system similar to Singapore? It will be percentage based on your income range. Everyone below 30k just pay say 5% because you have to earn your keep. And because pur country is not rich enough to support everyone. Charge the richer corps/individuals higher tax because anyway they earn more. Implement higher taxes on sin products - cigarettes, alcohol, casino. The government get to keep the money at the same time discourage people from engaging on it.

3. Offering free medicine for the poor. I believe this is already in place but implementation/execution is lacking. There are also people who are abusing this. 

May I suggest this instead:

- offer tax incentives to pharma companies on the medicine donations

- offer tax incentives to doctors and other health practitioners on their volunteer hours 

Preventive measures

-- Despite the incentives all individuals must still pay the min amount of tax (per income bracket)