MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Finance (DOF) has recognized the Quezon City government as the country’s top-performing city for 2020 in terms of local revenue generation amid the pandemic.
The city government on Tuesday received four awards during the stakeholders recognition program of the DOF’s Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF).
Quezon City ranked the highest in terms of nominal locally sourced revenues among local government units (LGUs) in Metro Manila and all cities nationwide.
In terms of year-on-year growth in locally sourced revenues, the city government ranked the highest among LGUs in Metro Manila and the third highest among all cities in the Philippines.
Mayor Joy Belmonte and city treasurer Edgar Villanueva accepted the recognitions from the DOF.
This is the second straight year that Quezon City won multiple accolades given annually by the DOF.
Last year, the city government was recognized as the top LGU in terms of locally sourced revenues.
Local revenues include real property and business taxes as well as other tax and non-tax revenues.
According to Belmonte, the high collection of taxes and other revenues despite the pandemic is proof of the public’s trust in the local government.
She earlier reiterated her commitment to good governance, vowing to implement more programs and initiatives to expand services for Quezon City residents.
Belmonte also thanked the BLGF for extending guidance to the city government on how to improve revenue collection and manage local resources despite the global health crisis.
Based on records from the BLGF, revenues generated by Quezon City increased by more than 14 percent, from P19.33 billion in 2019 to P22.04 billion in 2020.
Broken down, taxes accounted for around 94 percent at P20.79 billion. The city government collected P15.24 billion in business taxes, P4.78 billion in real property taxes and P753.78 million in other taxes last year.
Quezon City also registered P1.25 billion in non-tax income, the third highest in Metro Manila, behind Pasig’s P1.75 billion and Manila’s P1.36 billion.