THE Commission on Audit (COA) bared that Davao City is among the top 10 highest-earning local government units (LGUs) in the country in 2015.
In COA’s recently-released annual financial report on LGUs, Davao City ranked as sixth highest-earning LGU in 2015 with total reported revenues of P6.2 billion.
Davao City came behind Quezon City (P16.365 billion), Makati City (P15.506 billion), Manila (P12.595 billion), Pasig City (P8.381 billion) and Cebu City (P7.216 billion).
The rest of the highest-earning LGUs were Taguig (P6.104 billion), Caloocan City (P4.355 billion), Muntinlupa City (P4.154 billion) and Parañaque City (P4.05 billion).
Davao City was the only city in Mindanao that was included in the top 10 list.
The City Investment Promotions Center officer-in-charge Lemuel Ortonio told SunStar Davao in a phone interview that one big factor that contributed to this milestone is good governance.
“The city’s revenue collecting agencies have set in place efficient systems in the collection of taxes,” he said.
Last 2014, Davao City was not listed in the top 10 highest-earning LGU but two other cities in Mindanao made it to the top 10: Zamboanga City with P10.464 billion, and Cagayan de Oro City with P4.67 billion.
Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. president Bonifacio Tan, in a separate interview, said the increasing numbers of information technology-business process outsourcing, malls and property development, hotels and accommodation industries contribute on sales and property taxes to the City Government.
The collection performance of the regional office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in 2015 increased by 15.4 percent to P14.338 billion as against 2014's P12.426 billion tax collections.
The BIR-Davao data bared that the biggest bulk was collected from the division 132 East Davao City with P5.6 billion followed by division 113-West Davao City with P4.362 billion, division 112 Tagum City, Davao del Norte with P2.713 billion, division 115-Digos City, Davao del Sur with P1.053 billion and division 114-Mati City, Davao Oriental with P609.6 million.
Tagum City in Davao del Norte reported the biggest earnings among cities in the region (excluding Davao City) in 2015 breaching the billion mark at P1.3 billion.
Panabo City in Davao del Norte came second with P 955.7 million, followed by Mati City in Davao Oriental with P781.2 million, Digos City in Davao del Sur with P724.8 million and Island Garden City of Samal in Davao del Norte with P532 million.
The combined revenue of the six cities in the region (including Davao City) is at P 10.4 billion.
For the region’s municipalities, Sto. Tomas, Davao del Norte takes the lead with P292.4 million in revenues followed by Municipality of Monkayo in Compostela Valley (P290.7 million), Malita in Davao Occidental (P277 million), Sta. Cruz in Davao del Sur (P258.7 million), Kapalong in Davao del Norte (P252 million), Nabunturan in Comval (P232.8 million), Laak in Compostela Valley (P225.6 million), Lupon in Davao Oriental (P224.9 million), Maco in Compostela Valley (P290.7 million) and Pantukan in Compostella Valley (P216.9 million).
Other municipalities, which were not mentioned, earned P200 million and below.
The 2015 annual financial report on LGUs, released by COA last week, covered 78 provinces (out of 81), 141 cities (out of 145), and 1,428 municipalities (out of 1,489) in the country.