This should always be the bottom line in setting fees and charges for public services.

We know that state imposts are inevitable, but they should be tempered by economic realities, particularly the specific public need they would satisfy and the capacity of the supposed beneficiaries to absorb them.    

And such adjustments must result in a corresponding improvement in public service, the outcome which should be directly felt and verifiable.       

And so we we agree with and support Sen. Ralph G. Recto’s call  for  government agencies raising their fees and charges this year to prove to the public that they deserve the additional centavos or pesos that would be paid to them in exchange for their oftentimes sloppy and corruption-tainted  service.

Recto said government should also  go easy on the planned increase in fees and charges in the face of looming adjustments in toll fees due to VAT, water and electricity rates, “sin taxes,” and even the continued oil price increases.

“The agencies signaling their intention to raise their fees and charges should prove beyond doubt that they are deserving of the additional centavos that the transacting public would shell out,” the  chairman of the Senate ways and means committee said.

The lawmaker  cited the Bureau of Customs, which plans to raise its port fees and charges by 50 percent  to 200 percent, which have consistently landed in the top five most corrupt agencies in respectable surveys done in 2009, 2010 and in March 2011.

“With the missing container vans and collection shortfall as background, allowing BoC to raise fees is tantamount to rewarding corruption and inefficiency,” he pointed out.

Recto said even the National Bureau of Investigation, which is among the first agencies sought out by job seekers for their ‘prized’ document, could not even provide seamless service in disposing their NBI clearance document, leaving thousands of young unemployed distraught and disappointed. The NBI plans a 50-percent increase in its fees.

He stressed other agencies like the Professional Regulation Commission, National Telecommunications Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission should also justify their planned 20 percent to 30 percent increase in fees and charges.

The senator nevertheless criticized the Department of Energy  for also planning to raise fees despite its failure to fully assure the seething public that the series of oil prices hikes that were enforced by oil companies were not overpriced or rigged.

He added: “There should be a rhyme and reason for the increase in fees and charges. We could, after all, bear parting with our few centavos or pesos as long as we know that these agencies have performed well and deserving of our hard-earned tax peso.”

Recto nevertheless said for increases that are really necessary and deserving, the government could adopt a two or three-step hike to cushion its impact on the public.

A DoF official has announced that some agencies, which are in the frontline of government service, will have to raise their fees and charges by as much as 200 percent to shore up non- tax revenues for an estimated annual incremental revenue of P4.15 billion.

But the call of the senator, a staunch ally of President Aquino, fell on deaf ears.

The President himself indicated yesterday that a hike in fares for both the Mass Railway Transit and Light Railway Transit was inevitable although he would not say when this would be implemented.

When asked whether he shared the view of some of his economic managers and economists who favor raising the MRT and LRT fares, the President replied that his administration’s policy was to make sure the MRT and LRT fares would be “close to or equal to bus fares”.

The minimum charge on the MRT is P10 while it is P12 on both LRT-1 and LRT-2. The maximum charge is P15 for both MRT and LRT.

Asked how soon the fare hikes would happen, he said that he still had to “check on the actual dates.”