BIR chief Kim Henares
I have had many interviews with government officials and company presidents scheduled for Friday afternoons, which is usually the only free time they have in their usually busy work weeks.
Based on my experience, government officials, in particular, usually spend the latter part of the last working day of the week lounging around in their cushy offices or in hotel lobbies entertaining (or being entertained by favor seekers).
Not so for Kim Jacinto-Henares.
My late Friday afternoon appointment with the head of the Bureau of Internal Revenue found her hunched over a pile of documents – four piles to be exact –reading them, signing off on some, scribbling marginal notes on others.
“Fridays are just as busy as all other days here,” she says, adding that her days on the average, often stretches well into the evenings. “There is a lot of work to be done, so we come in early and leave late.”
Indeed, the burden placed on the shoulders of Henares – a veteran of the tax bureau – are daunting.
Two-thirds of gov’t income
The BIR, on the average, is responsible to collecting two-thirds of the government’s income on any given year, and this year, that collection goal stands at P940 billion.
To date, the BIR’s collection figures are slightly below that target, but only by a narrow margin.
“That’s our goal. No revisions downward or upward,” she says, when asked about a revenue target that no BIR chief had met since the economic boom of the mid-90s.
“My philosophy on goals is that it’s there to be reached,” she says. “If it’s something unreachable, then why are we even trying, right? That’s why it’s there. It’s something to strive for.”
Henares’ can-do attitude is something that made her a key player in the campaign team of President Aquino in the run up to last year’s presidential elections.
Before then Senator Aquino announced his intention to seek the highest office in the land, Henares had already been active in the exploratory group of then Senator Mar Roxas who was, himself, eyeing the presidency.
“I was one of those who had volunteered my services,” she says. “There were several of us.”
Eco think tank
But the death of former President Corazon Aquino in August 2010 changed the local political landscape dramatically, thrusting Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino to the forefront. With a few adjustments in campaign strategy, Henares found herself part of a group that basically acted as the economic think tank and focus group of presidential candidate Aquino.
“We would meet with him to get his ideas, then we would draft policy papers based on these ideas, and present it back to him,” she says.
One of the more memorable policies of the group which Henares found herself in was the President’s “no new taxes” pledge which he unveiled during his landmark speech before the Makati Business Club early in the official campaign period.
As such, it was no surprise that Henares was one of the first members of President Aquino’s official team to be appointment after the elections.
“SHOOTING is a good discipline, and it’s good for stress relief,” Henares says
“He said to us, ‘you all had a hand in thrusting me into this position so you all have an obligation to help me here’”. Then she adds with a laugh: “It was almost like emotional blackmail!”
Background
Henares, of course, is well positioned to be a key player in the President’s economic team. She graduated with a commerce degree from De La Salle University and became a Certified Public Accountant in 1981. She also earned a law degree from the Ateneo de Manila University. She later went on to earn a Masters of Law degree from another Jesuit institution, Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Since then, she has worked in SGV & Co., private law firms, the local unit of ING Bank, as a governor of the Board of Investments, and as a consultant for the World Bank.
The last one was particularly colorful as she was asked to fly to Kabul in Afghanistan in 2006 to help set up that country’s tax agency—a formal structure not seen by the locals in decades.
“It was an interesting experience,” she says. “We got to deal with all sorts of people. Some were nice, some were professional and some were not.”
But now, Henares finds herself back at the BIR, which she had been a part of from 2003 to 2005 (heading the bureau’s Large Taxpayers Service).
Her appointment was cheered by the business community, but met with some degree of trepidation by officials at the BIR, many of whom remember her for her “strict” ways and sometimes unyielding personality – an anathema in an agency that has earned a reputation for corruption in the past.
Intelligent BIR people
“I always say that the BIR people are so intelligent,” she says. “They’re so intelligent that they know that, if they won’t get away with any hanky panky, they won’t try it.”
“So I just keep telling them to focus on their performance and on delivering results,” Henares adds, pointing out that while BIR continues to fall short on revenues, the small gap between actual collections and target has been narrowing continuously.
So what does she do to relax when not at work?
“I try to spend the entire weekend with my family,” she says. “Weekends are maximized with them.”
She and her husband, businessman Dan Henares, have taken up target shooting on weekends at various shooting ranges in and around Metro Manila, with no less than President Aquino having tutoring the BIR commissioner on the rudiments early on (Henares’ favorite firearms include the pricey STI International .40 caliber pistol and the SIG Sauer 552 Commando rifle).
“Shooting is a good discipline, and it’s good for stress relief,” she says.
And stress relief is something Henares needs a lot of, given the burden on her shoulder of funding the Aquino administration’s program of government – a burden she does not shy away from.
“This probably the best opportunity we have to make things better for our country,” she says. “This is why I look forward to going to work everyday.”
And to shooting on weekends, of course.