Stephen Monsanto hit the nail on the head: “QC taxpayers hornswoggled—again” (Letters, 12/27/16). We could only wish he had more nails to hammer into the heads of the councilors who approved that “hideous ordinance” in haste that now allows them (with bigger “pork barrel” perks from increased taxes) to use bigger tarpaulins to advertise their disgusting faces in all the city streets and sidewalks. This is not to mention the unbridled wanderlust and globe-trotting junkets of the mayor and his cohorts, at taxpayers’ expense.
We were hoping to hear more debates about the wisdom of raising more taxes in light of the “undisputed” fact that Quezon City is already the “richest city” in the entire country in terms of income generation. In fact, it was not the need for more money that the proposed realty tax increase was based on; it was supposedly “ordered” by the Department of Finance. The “palusot” went: “Much as we do not like to burden our taxpayers, this adjustment is a requirement of the law”. What arrant nonsense!
Quezon City officials admitted that the city’s cash situation is still the envy of all local government units during the so-called public hearings when that ordinance was supposedly still being proposed. Little did we know it was already a done deal—as it was with that “housing tax” (“hoax”) that required law-abiding taxpayers to pay more taxes for the benefit of those who do not pay taxes at all (let’s call a spade a spade: squatters) but are rich sources of mindless electoral votes!
If anyone wishes to call for a tax boycott in Quezon City, we are quite sure many of us will start considering such a course of action as a matter of self-defense against the impertinence, greed and rapacity of our public officials. This city may yet find its own version of a more virulent “tea (taxed enough already) party” protest!
MARIA MARGARITA AYTONA, marimar_ay@yahoo.com