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Thursday, January 19, 2006
People can’t pay tax raise - Joy
By Ginging A. Campaña
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Another council session ended yesterday with no progress on the move to adjust real property market values—and in effect increase realty taxes - in Cebu City.
No measure was passed suspending the ordinance implementing the market values set in 2003. Yet neither did the council enact any ordinance to introduce the new market values.
Instead, Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera defended herself before the body against “unfair criticisms” she received from Mayor Tomas Osmeña through the media.
Taking into account the “uncertain economic and political situation of the country,” Pesquera proposed last December that the implementation of the 2003 real property market values—which will serve as basis for the 30 percent increase in realty taxes—be moved to 2007.
She sponsored the deferment of Ordinance 99.
But the City Treasurer’s Office said the ordinance has been suspended several times, and the City “can no longer suspend its implementation any further.”
Complaints
This prompted Pesquera to table her ordinance last month. So, Ordinance 99 took effect last Jan. 1.
Early this month, however, Pesquera, City Treasurer Tessie Camarillo, City Assessor Eustaquio Cesa and other officials were called to a meeting to discuss the effects of the ordinance and the complaints of the realtors’ board, represented by Rene Avila.
“They said that the rates are really high and the people cannot afford as of this time to pay taxes based on the increased market values,” Pesquera told the council yesterday.
Complaints on the “faulty and inconsistent” assessments in some areas prompted the mayor to decide that Ordinance 99 be suspended for the first quarter, to give the executive department time to correct the rates and introduce a new ordinance.
But the council, as of yesterday, still has to dispose of Pesquera’s proposal to defer Ordinance 99, which she reintroduced last Jan. 11.
The body cannot decide on the measure yet, as committee on budget and finance vice chairman Nestor Archival yesterday said he was not ready to give his committee report. He was supposed to submit his report last Jan. 11.
Fixed schedule
Pesquera, for her part, said Archival’s report was ready last week.
“All the members were provided copies. Whatever reason he has, he will be the one responsible. Now it’s very clear that it was not I who has delayed the approval of this ordinance,” she said.
Pesquera’s resubmission of her proposal to defer the changes irked the mayor, who blamed her for the delay and faulty computations.
She said, however, that it was not her fault as it was the City Assessor’s Office that made the computations.
Pesquera also pointed out a legal problem in the executive department’s plan to suspend the 2003 rates and introduce a new schedule because once the 2003 rates are effective, “these can no longer be changed until after the next three years.”
The Local Government Code requires local government units to undertake a general revision of market values of real properties every three years.
Pesquera began her privilege motion yesterday by showing the council, through a slide presentation, the difference between the real property market values in 2003, as provided under City Ordinance 99, and the new rates being pushed by the executive department for the second quarter this year.
Higher rates
She pointed out that she considered the bleak economic situation of the country when she sought the deferment of Ordinance 99.
But the new rates, which she thought were lower than what the council approved in 2002, turned out to be higher.
“I don’t know the gauge they are using but I believe it was not the one approved by the council,” said Pesquera.
The rates actually were lower than those presented by the assessor’s office. “It will take them more time to finally come up with a new computation. What they are doing is not really a per area computation but tinamban (an approximation),” Pesquera said.
Among the rates that Pesquera mentioned are that for Barangay Talamban, originally pegged at P5,800 per square meter by then city assessor Palermo Lugo in 2002.
Believing that the area is not worth it, the council adjusted it to P4,800 for most areas, except for the road leading to Tigbao, which was set at P2,500 per sq.m.
“Now they (in the executive department) are proposing a new rate, which is the so-called lower than the 2002 rates, they made it P5,000. So which is higher, the 2002 rate or the P5,000?” Pesquera pointed out.
Executive
The proposed rate for land in the area of Mahiga bridge to Sulpicio Village in Banilad was P10,800. The council approved only P8,000 per square meter.
“Now they are proposing—in the guise of lowering the rate—P10,000 per square meter,” Pesquera said.
“It’s unfair that I’m being criticized for not doing anything and that I was responsible for increasing all the rates in Cebu City,” she said.
When Councilor Gabriel Leyson asked who was responsible for proposing the new rates, she merely said that it was former city administrator Juan Saul Montecillo, now Osmeña’s consultant, who handed her the document, as confirmed by City Assessor Cesa.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 19, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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