Mayors to ask House to recall cityhood bill for 27 municipalities

City mayors nationwide will ask the House of Representatives to recall a bill seeking to convert 27 municipalities into cities.

Mandaluyong Mayor Benhur Abalos, League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) president, will lead a contingent of city mayors to ask lawmakers to hear their side before sending the bill to plenary.

“We were never informed or notified about the bill,” he said.

Abalos said the LCP is not against the conversion of the 27 municipalities into cities.

“But the problem is where would we get the money to support them?” he asked.

Abalos said if the bill is passed into law a city’s IRA allotment would decrease by at least P90 million.

“If that should happen, what I see is the extinction of the cities in the country,” he said.

Other cities would lose between P300 million to P400 million, he added.

Abalos said the LCP will push through with the plan of 120 cities nationwide to display Philippine flags at half mast during the traditional flag-raising ceremonies and for city employees to wear black arm bands to protest the bill.

The bill seeks to decrease the share of cities in the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) from the national government, he added.

Abalos said the LCP will ask the help of Congress in implementing a long-term solution to the cityhood problem.

“It is not our intention to object to the cityhood of these 27 municipalities because we also want them to enjoy the fruits of being a city,” he said.

“What we want is for them to pass the requirements under the local government code without exceptions.”

Under the Local Government Code, a municipality can only be converted into a city when it generates P100 million in taxes yearly, and with either a 250,000 population or a land area of 100 square kilometers.

However, the bill authored by Zamboanga-Sibugay Rep. Ann Hofer aims to amend the Local Government Code to peg the minimum generated average annual income requirement for cityhood at P100 million for at least two consecutive years.

Hofer said the law unduly restricted the economic, political and socio-cultural developments of the 27 municipalities which served as capital towns of provinces that have no cities.

“Given their role as the commercial, political, and socio-cultural centers in their respective provinces, it becomes necessary to further capacitate these municipalities by elevating their status to component cities,” she said.

Hofer said a change of status would give the municipalities more autonomy and taxation powers and an increased share in the IRA.

“More importantly, cityhood will boost investor confidence and invigorate the business climate (of the 27 municipalities),” she said.

At a press conference Tuesday at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila mayors declared their opposition to the bill on grounds that the delivery of basic services and salary increase of their employees would suffer.

Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said the criteria of selection for cityhood should not be changed.

“What would prevent other municipalities from converting into a city if some of them are using the backdoor in their bid for cityhood?” he asked.

Quezon City’s IRA is used to care for the urban poor from the provinces who are being sheltered by the city government, Belmonte said.

Abalos said the LCP asked the Supreme Court last year to stop the conversion into cities of 16 municipalities, excluding San Juan City and Navotas.

“We have no quarrel with the cities of Navotas and San Juan because they passed the requirements of the Local Government Code,” he said.

Navotas is expecting an 82 percent increase in IRA this year, while San Juan City is looking at 116 percent.

Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco said it would be unfair to his constituents who are expecting to taste this year the benefits of the IRA after years of hard work complying with the necessary requirements for cityhood.

Abalos gave as example Puerto Princesa City, which could only get an additional P1.7 million IRA this year instead of its expected share of P146.1 million or 15 percent increase because of the conversion last year of the 16 municipalities into cities.

Abalos said Puerto Princesa City, which is 85 percent dependent on IRA from the national government, would soon find itself seeking other sources of revenues to fund its increasing operational costs.

“Even the slightest reduction in its existing IRA will severely cripple its operations,” he said.

The LCP has called on the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to make public its computation for the IRA release for 2008, which reflected a staggering decrease in the share of each city. – With Roberto Dejon