BAGUIO City Mayor Mauricio Domogan urged members of the City Council to enact pending revenue measures that will provide the needed source of funds for ordinances that grant benefits to government workers and marginalized sectors of the community.
Domogan cited an example wherein the relatives of a 99-year-old individual who recently passed away came to his office and seeking benefits for a near centenarian pursuant to what had been promised to them by some local legislators as contained in an ordinance.
However, upon verification with the staff of the local legislative body, he pointed out that there was no ordinance that was passed for the purpose.
"We must refrain from providing our people with false hopes because it will have a negative impact on the overall image of the local government once our promises have been proven to be non-existent. We should not use our political ambitions to make people expect much from us when we could not actually deliver what we have been telling them as their supposed benefits," Domogan said.
The mayor advised local legislators to first secure from the city's local finance committee a certificate of availability of funds for their proposals needing appropriation of funds to ensure that there will be sufficient funds that will be used to support the allocation of funds for whatever programs, projects and activities that will be institutionalized by the local legislative body.
Domogan added the proposed ordinance for the revision of schedule of market values for real property taxes had been pending for a long time with the local legislative body but it was never acted upon by the local legislators for fear that their political ambitious might be compromised once the new measure will take effect.
The chief executive said the revision of the schedule of market values for real property taxes was supposed to be one of the sources of revenue of the local government to further increase its annual budget but it was never realized and that the local finance committee could no longer stretch the city's existing resources just to accommodate whatever requests from the local legislative body.
Domogan also said that the local government has to already adopt a new measure to update its existing schedule of market values for real property taxes, because the same has not been amended or revised over the past two decades, and that the city has been included in the watch list of the finance department as one of the local governments that have obsolete schedule of market values for real property taxes.
Republic Act 7160, otherwise known as the Local Government Code of the Philippines, mandates local governments to revise their schedule of market values for real property taxes every five years to conform with the prevailing situation in the different localities around the country.
Domogan urged the local legislative body to consider passing the needed revenue measures pending for a long time because it will provide the appropriate sources of funds for more development projects and enhance the delivery of basic services to the people of the city. (PR)