There are two kinds of income: actual and psychic.

It’s like tax quantity like income, business, percentage, ad valorem, etc., on one hand and prestige on the other. There’s no available formula when you talk of the latter tax type. All you have is just to feel it deep in your gut.

We are gunning for 10M tourists for 2016 according to Pnoy. Quantified, that number of visitors (with the likes of Paris Hilton and Barack Obama who count as fans revving up the “it’s fun” mantra) can compensate the tax deficiencies of the Taxman, err, Pacman. Pacman is an outlier.

He’s not the ordinary professional: lawyer, md, or billionaires like Tony Tan KakTiong, Bong Pineda, Danny Suarez, or CJ Corona. He’s no Manila envelope. He’s a national treasure that happens once in a lifetime. He’s a speck of diamond from a heap of 100M-ton pay dirt.

50 years from now we look back with nostalgia (remember Pancho Villa or Flash Elorde?) on the honors brought by the boy from Sarangani to this godforsaken country. And I’m not talking about Rolando Navarette.

100M tax debt? The dignity Pacman gave us is more than that. The BIR should exhibit emotional quotient and not IQ. Kim no doubt knows her taxcode inside out but there are imponderables out there. The tax office regional director talking about just doing his job is plain dense.

It’s quadragesima all right but let’s not engage in inane self-flagellation. Don’t remove Pacman, just yet, from our delirium equation.

 “Hindi ko masasabi sa inyong, pasensya na kayo hindi ko nagawa ‘to n’ung hindi ko pa katungkulan ‘to. Pero mapapangako ko po sa inyo, hihingi po kami ng tulong… para nga hindi sabihin sa kababayan nating magtiis kayo ng magtiis. Hindi ho. Trabaho ng gobyerno bawasan nang bawasan yung pagtitiis ninyo,” Noynoy Aquino