QC taxpayers hornswoggled—again

Mayor Herbert Bautista and his posse of pushovers in the city council are hornswoggling residents of Quezon City into believing the “urgent” need to increase real estate taxes. Rapidly approved, a hideous ordinance increases land values by a whopping 500-plus percent (“QC folks face tax hike as city OKs higher land values,” News, 12/14/16).

In justifying the increase, Bautista said: “An obligation that is posed before us now is to adjust the Schedules of Fair Market Values of real properties in the city. Much as we do not like to burden our taxpayers, this adjustment is a requirement of law. Our Commission on Audit resident auditor has highlighted this need, pointing out that the last time Quezon City adjusted its schedule of fair market values was 21 years ago. We have not been complying with the requirements of the Local Government Code, which provides that the City Assessor should undertake a general revision of real property assessment every three years.” He mentioned also the “order” from the Department of Finance to “comply” with the revision.

At least three things are as clear as daylight and undisputed: (1) QC is the richest city in the entire country with billions of tax money in banks and investments. Even Makati City is a far second. This simply means QC has no urgent need to raise more taxes.

(2) There is no better proof of that than the fact that for about 21 years, QC never found the need to offend taxpayers with a unilateral revision of real estate values. None of the present and past city officials has ever been held to account, either criminally or administratively, for dereliction of duty and for not complying with the requirements of the Local Government Code (LGC).

(3) The LGC provisions and the so-called “order of the Department of Finance” only require periodic revision of market values of land. Nowhere do they make it mandatory for local governments to increase taxes based on those increased land values. It’s a choice given to them—to go north or south, or stay put with their present tax impositions—depending on their financial status and requisites.

It was thus totally disingenuous of the incumbent QC officials to say that they had no choice but to increase realty taxes “to comply with the requirements of the law.” Shorn of their sophistry in arguing for such increase, there was a choice: By all means revise the land values according to the present-day demands of the real estate market; but given the fact that the city government is awash with more cash than its officials can squander, they should have instead done the taxpayers a long-overdue favor by reducing the tax, giving more discounts/incentives, or just maintaining the present rates. There is NO LAW that compels them to do otherwise.

The truth of the matter is, those were the options laid down by an overwhelming number of QC residents who attended the public hearings called presumably to hear their sentiments. But, as always, those charades were really just for photo ops and mere formalities. It seemed the ordinance in question had long been a fait accompli, as most everyone suspected.

The most insulting part is, “enhanced public service” is being bandied about as added fillip to City Hall’s push for tax increase. QC residents could not help asking: What “public service,” let alone “enhanced”? Radio and TV commentators echo the same lament almost on a daily basis amidst all the mess they see around: May gobyerno ba sa QC?

Take, for instance, the “housing tax” supposedly for “informal settlers” that QC taxpayers have been forced to bear for years now: We still see them setting up shanties on center islands where their children play around in the streets just within a kilometer or so away from City Hall.

Alack and alas, QC taxpayers have been had—again.

STEPHEN L. MONSANTO,
lexsquare.firm@gmail.com