By ERWIN ‘AMBO’ DELILAN
FROM THE “unwanted” P4.4 billion loan now comes the “unpalatable” proposed tax hike in Bacolod City. This tax hike will include real property and business.
First to react was the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI). Next, sari-sari store owners.
MBCCI’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frank Carbon said: “The whole country, including Bacolod, is beset by two major crises – soaring prices of food and other essentials, and of energy and electric power.
“Such,” Carbon stressed, “is the result of a confluence of events – (1) lingering ill-effects of the health pandemic and (2) the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”
The endings, he voiced, hunger and poverty!
The national government is contemplating of issuing food stamps to fight hunger, he bared. Thus, increase in business tax and real estate tax will be passed on by small businesses to the prices of goods and services, he warned. And it’ll make food and other essentials and services beyond the reach of lower-income families.
If this happens soonest, Carbon said, lots of families will suffer hunger and malnutrition, which effects are irreversible.
“Misery loves company,” he presaged.
WHY LOAN?
Why loan, asked Annette, a sari-sari storeowner in Barangay Bata.
“Bal-an na gid nga indi kasarang ang syudad mag-bayad sang P4.4 billion, nga-a piliton gid?” Annette added.
“Abi namon change, loan gali ‘ya ang amon pas-anon?” Beverly, 25, sari-sari storeowner in Barangay Estefania.
Loida of Barangay Banago stressed: “Okay lang na ‘ya mag-loan ang syudad basta indi lang masangtan ang mga imol katulad namon. Pero, kon ang business tax pasaka-an, lain na ‘ya nga istorya.”
City Treasurer Arlene Memoria, in her letter to Mayor Albee Benitez (dated April 20,2023), suggested for the immediate tax hike in the city. She cited Section 191 re: Authority of local government units (LGUs) to adjust rates of tax ordinances of the Local Government Code of 1991.
Memoria stressed LGUs have the authority to adjust tax rates as prescribed, but not often than once in every five years.
The mayor (on May 15, 2023) immediately endorsed Memoria’s letter to the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP). He asked SP members to consider the propriety of reviewing the city’s tax rates as per City Ordinance No. 627.
‘MORAL DILEMMA’
However, the proposed tax hike has a “moral dilemma”. The public suspects that it’s meant to pay the P4.4 billion loan for 15-20 years.
This, as Memoria stressed in her letter to the mayor that the main goal of the tax hike is “to optimize financial resources to finance various development projects of the city.”
“To increase revenue collection by 70% at the end of the first year of implementation” is the main objective.
Right now, the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) is getting ready to examine the book of accounts of business establishments as its first strategy this May.
Tax mapping? Per report, it’s already done by the City Assessor’s Office (CAO).
By June to November, CTO will conduct actual examination of businesses in the city with its tax examiner.
Next are the issuances of letters of assessment, notices and final demand for payment to all businesses.
CTO will then revise the local revenue code as the second strategy.
‘HISTORICAL LOAN’
But Mayor Albee is “silent” right now. He commissioned Councilor Al Victor Espino to do the talking to the media.
Loud and proud, Espino said this P4.4 billion is kinda “historical”. It made Bacolod as the “biggest borrower” in the entire country now, he added.
And the 3.25% interest rate per annum as offered by the Development of the Philippines (DBP), he stressed, is the lowest in AsPac (Asia-Pacific).
Besides, the councilor said, even the ordinary “balut” vendors will benefit from this controversial loan.
How?
That’s the intriguing question now, following the loan controversy that includes P279.3 million (just) for furniture and equipment (F&E).
Worse is the proposed P515-million new legislative building with helipad and P85-M for F&E.
Lately, netizens also nixed the city’s plan to spend P47-M for the development of the city’s tree park in Alangilan with P3-M budget for F&E.
Trees there, planted during the incumbency of the late mayor Oscar Verdeflor, were already full grown.
Mayor Albee’s deafening silence on this newest controversy dubbed as “green brouhaha” is likewise notable.
INAPT
The tax hike is necessary but not attuned with the present situation.
Also, the city government, perhaps, made a misstep. It failed to “sugar-coat” the tax proposal ahead of the loan hullabaloo, making it “unpalatable” to many.
The points of Carbon have essence and substance. Amid these challenging times, a tax hike is “unacceptable” to public. As a result, the city execs have to weather people’s angst. They need to balance the two contentious matters./PN
