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Friday, April 28, 2006
City status for Naga, Carcar
The towns of Naga and Carcar in southern Cebu may be converted into cities before next year’s elections.
Rep. Eduardo Gullas (Cebu, 1st district) announced yesterday that the proposals may be taken up by the Senate when sessions resume next month or in July.
“We are hopeful,” he said, adding that there are 23 pending proposals for cityhood.
Gullas said the House of Representatives already approved the creation of the 23 cities during the 11th Congress, whose term ran from 1998 to 2001.
However, the proposals were set aside because of the impeachment trial of former president Joseph Estrada.
Gullas said the petitioners already appeared before the Sen. Alfredo Lim, chairman of the Senate committee on local government, so the proposals will be taken up.
Naga Mayor Valdemar Chiong said the town is “ready” for cityhood.
With an increase in the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), Chiong hopes to bring more services to his constituents once Naga becomes a city.
The first-class municipality, he believes, has among the highest budgets among the towns in Cebu Province.
Naga operates on a P100-million annual budget, 55 percent of which go to basic services.
Carcar Mayor Patrick Barcenas said aside from an increase in IRA, becoming a city would bring in more residents to the town, resulting to an increase in revenues.
It would also result in an increase in real property values, bringing more income to Carcar.
However, Gullas said that although the law on the creation of cities was amended before the term of the 11th congress ended, he believes the 23 proposals, including Naga and Carcar, were already considered approved.
“The principal author hurried (Sen. Aquilino) Pimentel Jr. to regulate the creation of cities,” he said.
Pimentel succeeded in having the law amended that a town or a cluster of barangays need to have an average annual income of P100,000, excluding the IRA, before it could become a city.
The previous requirement was only at P20,000, including the IRA.
Gullas said Carcar and Naga would not qualify under the new requirement.
He revealed that when he became majority floor leader in the 11th Congress, he approved the conversion of 31 municipalities into cities under the old requirement.
“We became 115 (cities). (Pimentel told me) that it’s too much,” he said.
“What’s the problem? If they qualify, let’s make them into cities so that these municipalities will get a bonanza in the IRA. That’s why Talisay got a bonanza,” said Gullas, who was former Talisay City mayor.
Talisay’s cityhood in 2001 is being questioned by Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, Gullas’ political foe.
If Carcar and Naga would become cities, their IRA would increase drastically.
Chiong said Naga has, at present, an IRA of about P50 to P60 million. Barcenas, for his part, said Carcar gets an IRA of P75 million annually.
Cities get an IRA share of about P180 million to P200 million, Gullas said.
Under the Local Government Code, a town has to have at least a P20 million average annual income for two consecutive years, and a population of 150,000 or land area of at least 100 square kilometers.
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