REVENUE M EMORANDUM CIRCULAR NO. 12-2009 issued on March 2, 2009 publishes the full text of Administrative Order (AO) No. 240 dated October 3, 2008 issued by the President of the Republic of the Philippines, entitled “Ordering Budget Maximizers Without Reva mping Expenditure Parameters.”
     Pursuant to Section 2 of the AO, all the fruits of the Value-Added Tax (VAT) shall be put in one basket. It shall be called Revenues Allocated for PUBLIC Services, or REAPS. The most popular, high- impact, big ticket projects and programs shall be selected and put together in one basket. All social services, all new activities both retail (e.g. LRT expansion) shall be placed there. The amount shall be P100 Billion, which corresponds to 80% of the Reformed VAT intake.