Where do QC taxes go?
This is a reaction, from an aged Quezon City constituent, to Neal Cruz’s column titled “QC is most oppressive city government” (Opinion, 1/6/14).
For years now, I have been faithfully paying taxes: the 1 1/2-percent tax for special education, the socialized housing tax, even the idle land tax. And now we are being charged a garbage tax!
As Cruz says in his column, we have yet to see a housing project being built for squatters on public or private property. We do not see any trees being planted. Our schoolchildren are still cramped 50 to 60 in a classroom, so where does the Special Education Fund go? (When I was the secretary to the school board, I prepared a budget for additional classrooms which was approved and implemented. This was when I was the assistant to the school superintendent in the early 1970s.)
And this Cruz will not believe: Quezon City’s “honorable” council approved City Ordinance No. 1915 in 2009 to establish a program for “Early Detection, Care and Intervention for Children with Special Needs.” But until now the ordinance is waiting to be implemented. Not one district of the city has a single Sped (Special Education) Center that is in operation. Why? Because our Quezon City government has not appropriated the necessary funds. I should know. Our center in District 3 has no funds.
So I think I will write Speaker Sonny Belmonte to ask him to have Congress enact a law for this purpose. After all, as a former mayor, he knows that our city is the richest city in the Philippines! He made it so! There is no reason its officials cannot implement already existing ordinances. Its officials even allow violators of the zoning rules and regulations in the construction of giant billboards that hide beautiful scenery and “uglify” the landscape.
—CONSUELO D. SISON,
