Wednesday, September 27, 2006
4 N. Mindanao towns aspire city status
By Danilo V. Adorador III
AT LEAST four Northern Mindanao municipalities are aspiring for cityhood, three of which come from Misamis Oriental, a regional finance official said Tuesday.
The towns with pending cityhood application at the Congress are Claveria, Opol and El Salvador in Misamis Oriental and Tubod in Lanao de Norte, said Romeo Melad, regional director of the Department of Budget (DBM)-Northern Mindanao.
The creation of new cities was greeted with opposition from other cities including Cagayan de Oro, because it meant the newcomers would share the pie in the annual Internal Revenue Allocation (IRA).
Mayor Vicente Emano said Cagayan de Oro stands to lose around P50 million in IRA if the conversion of over 20 municipalities into cities pushes through. Last week, Emano said the Senate approved the creation of 10 cities.
The addition of new cities will always affect the IRA share, Melad said, "Since the IRA, which is 23 percent of the national budget, will be divided among cities, old or new."
At press time, no official memorandum was received from the DBM central office on the revised share of IRA this year, or was there any official information on the latest conversion of cities to DBM, he said.
If Congress passes the supplemental budget this month, Cagayan de Oro will receive its remaining IRA but may experience a "differential loss" because of the possible reduced IRA share, the DBM official said.
The creation of new cities has ruffled feathers among the members of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP), when the House late last year passed a resolution exempting 23 municipalities from the P20 million annual income requirement for cityhood conversion.
Claveria, Opol, and El Salvador are among the towns seeking exemptions, apparently indicating that the three Misamis Oriental towns failed to meet the income requirement prescribed by RA 7160, otherwise known as the Local Government Code.
LCP also pointed out the new income requirement for cityhood conversion, as embodied in Republic Act 9009, include the include an average annual income of P100 million for the last two consecutive years based on Year 2000 constant prices as certified by the Department of Finance.
The application of municipalities seeking cityhood conversion, however, should be thoroughly reviewed, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said.
Pimentel has recently sought a clear-cut policy on the creation of new cities to address the deluge of proposals for conversion of municipalities into cities.
He said many municipalities are only after a bigger IRA from the National Government in pushing for their conversion into cities.
"The major financial implication of increasing the number of cities in the country is that the internal revenue share of cities would be reduced. And on the side of the municipalities concerned, their conversion would raise their internal revenue shares tremendously," he said.
Pimentel, principal author of the Local Government Code of 1991, said there are already 117 cities in the country and there are still House resolutions seeking to convert 23 municipalities into cities.
"Now, we are flooded again by numerous requests for the creation of cities, some in provinces that are already dotted with many cities, others in provinces which do have cities, and still others in congressional districts that have no cities," he said.
(September 27, 2006 issue)
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