Wednesday, August 08, 2007 SC bars sale of Iloilo fishing port complex
THE Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday stopped the Iloilo City government from auctioning state properties leased to private entities that have been delinquent in settling their property tax obligations.
Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, chairperson of the SC Third Division granted the petition filed by the state-run Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA), which questioned Iloilo City's sale at public auction of the Iloilo Fishing Port Complex (IFPC) and its tax delinquency amounting to P5.07 million.
The high court said the IFPC, and by extension, the PFDA is an instrumentality of the National Government vested with special functions or jurisdiction by law, which exercises government power of eminent domain and the power to levy fees and charges, thus, such instrumentality does not become a corporation, unless it is organized on a stock or non-stock corporation.
The SC said properties held by government agencies and leased to private firms and individuals, may be liable for real property taxes by local government units but only insofar as those portions that are leased to private entities.
This means that the City of Iloilo has to satisfy the tax delinquency through means other than the sale at public auction," the SC said.
The SC further directed the Iloilo City Government to refrain from levying on the IFPC to satisfy the payment of the real property tax delinquency.
The SC decision reversed the June 21, 2005 decision of the Court of Appeals on the controversy and declared the real property tax assessments issued by the City of Iloilo on the land and buildings of the IFPC as void except on those portions leased to private parties.
The IFPC was among a number of properties administered by the PDFA. The property consists of a breakwater, landing quay, a refrigeration building, market hall, municipal shed, administration building, water and fuel oil supply system and other port related facilities and machineries and is part of a 21-hectare parcel of land in Barangay Tanza, Iloilo City reclaimed from the sea by the government.
The PFDA subsequently leased portions of the IFPC to private firms and individuals engaged in fishing related businesses.
On Aug. 11, 1976, the late President Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree (PD) 977 creating the PFDA and placing it under the direct control and supervision of the secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Among the properties that were subsequently placed under it included the IFPC.
The PFDA subsequently became an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture
In May 1988, the City of Iloilo assessed the entire IFPC for real property taxes, which remained unpaid until the alleged total tax delinquency of the authority for the fiscal years 1988 and 1989 amounted to P 5.07 million inclusive of penalties and interests.
To satisfy the tax delinquency, the City of Iloilo scheduled the sale at public auction of IFPC, prompting the agency to file a case before the lower court. (Sunnex)
