Marcos said his committee would still evaluate on the amount of collection of government on items that were not under the category of taxes but he told a gathering here on Friday night of the second board meeting of the Philippine Councilors’ League (PCL) that additional IRA funds would mainly come from these sources.
“There are collections by the Bureau of Customs, for example, which are not in the form of tax,” he said. He added that there were other similar collections by other regulating agencies in government “that we can get our additional funds for the local governments.”
His committee would seek a cut of the same 30 percent of these collections as what has been practiced also in computing the share of the IRA. The IRA is based on the 30 percent of the total tax collections of government, he pointed out.
“But the situation has now changed dramatically: more local government units have been formed, more LGUs have become cities, and so the IRA has also become smaller as more units have to share of the fund,” he said.
Last year alone 16 more towns, many of them the capital of provinces, have been upgraded to the cityhood status.
An increase in IRA would also mean pulling out some of the pressures in the budgeting process among local planners “because we all know that a big percentage of the IRA usually go to personnel services [PS].”
“We know that at least 53 percent, many LGUs in fact, have higher percentage, go to PS,” he said. “This would make it harder for local governments to set aside some amount for infrastructure and other development projects,” he said.
Alma Moreno-Salic, wife of Marawi City Mayor Sultan Fahad “Pre” Salic, and national president of the PCL, told reporters that the organization would cooperate with Marcos’s committee in finding more possible sources to increase the IRA fund.
Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, who also addressed the PCL board meeting attended by 1,500 presidents and other officers of the various municipal and provincial leagues of councilors, urged them to come up with ordinances to attract trade and investments.
“We have to find ways to make it easier to do business in our localities,” he said, as he cited Quezon City, where he once served as city administrator, for implementing a system “that would fast track the processing of business permits and would encourage taxpayers to settle local taxes because the two things every local government needs are money and business.”
