MANILA — Finance Secretary Frederick Go said the decision to scrap the travel tax for Filipinos going abroad should be left to legislators.

“We leave it to the wisdom of Congress,” Go said in a recent interview, noting that travel tax collections do not go directly to the national government.

“There’s none that goes to the national government. The total, I believe, the total travel tax revenue is P8 billion a year. So that’s your estimate,” he said.

Go added that 50 percent of the revenue goes to the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authorityza”], 40 percent to the Commission on Higher Education10 percent to arts-related programs.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. included the proposed abolition of the travel tax in his administration’s legislative priorities this year.

House Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander ‘Sandro’ Marcos, the president’s eldest son, filed House Bill 7443 seeking to repeal Presidential Decree No. 1183 and related provisions of the Tourism Act of 2009, which currently imposes a travel tax of P1,620 for economy class and P2,700 for first-class travelers.

Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco earlier cautioned that abolishing the travel tax without a replacement fund could negatively impact the tourism sector, noting that half of the collections support tourism infrastructure, 40 percent fund tourism education, and 10 percent are allocated for heritage preservation.