ACTING City Treasurer Arlene Memoria recently reported to Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia that the City was still able to collect P692 million in real property taxes (RPT) in 2020.
This was only P1.9 million short of the RPT collections in 2019.
In reaction, Leonardia said: “We are grateful that Bacolodnons continued to remit their RPT payments in 2020 despite the lockdowns then and the intermittent closure of the Real Estate Tax Division of the City Treasurer’s Office when several employees there tested positive for the virus.”
“This act of remitting their RPT payments, despite Covid-19, only goes to show the civic spirit of these Bacolodnons, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts," the mayor said.
Leonardia also added that they were expecting a bigger drop in the 2020 RPT collections because of the pandemic.
“To see it fall short by only P1.9 million against the 2019 collections is a clear sign that Bacolodnons understood how important their RPT payments were in helping their local government to provide them the essential services they needed during this pandemic," Leonardia said.
“We hope they will continue to remit these RPT payments in 2021 and even to settle their tax arrears, if any, so that we will have more funds in our fight against Covid-19 this year and to quickly recover the momentum in our economic thrusts once Covid is behind us," he further said.
The mayor said: “This is another indicator of how much promise and potentials there are in Bacolod. For sure, when this pandemic is over, we’ll put Bacolod back on track again and we will be back in business.” (PR)