DOLE 7 Dir. Cayanong“The manufacturing industry is now in hemorrhagic state”
Gov. Gwen Garcia“There is an injustice being committed to the people of Cebu”
Cebu mayors cry foul over reversion of cities
Mayor of three new cities in Cebu have expressed their disgust over the recent decision of the Supreme Court (SC) to strip them of their status as cities and revert their respected places into municipalities again.
The SC said 16 cities, including Carcar, Bogo, and Naga in Cebu, failed to meet some requirements needed for them to qualify as cities and sustained a petition filed by the League of Cities of the Philippines seeking to invalidate the grant of city status to 16 municipalities by the House of Representatives in 2007.
Mayors Valdemar Chiong of Naga, Patrick Barcenas of Carcar, and Celestino Martinez Jr. of Bogo all claimed that the SC decision is “unfair” and promised to file separate motion for reconsideration on the decision of the highest court.
Martinez said he immediately met with the City Council yesterday to discuss the SC decision and they all agreed to file a separate motion for reconsideration, saying the case of Bogo’s cityhood is different from the other 15 cities.
“Our application for cityhood started since the time of President Fidel Ramos but the approval was delayed. Most of the other new cities applied just recently,” said Martinez.
The Bogo City Council has earlier approved the plan to build a new city hall worth P150 million last year with the fund to be taken from the P180 million Internal Revenue Allotment of the city, said Martinez. Bogo used to receive only around P60 million before it became a city.
Mayor Barcenas of Carcar said city officials will challenge the decision of SC but assured his constituents that the delivery of services will not be affected although he stressed that more services and projects will be materialized if Carcar remains a city.
Barcenas also lambasted at the officials of the League of Cities of the Philippines for filing the petition, stressing that Bogo City is even more developed and more progressive than some of the other cities in the Philippines.
The league, represented by lawyer Regis Puno, asked the Supreme Court in March this year to declare the conversion of the 16 towns into cities was unconstitutional because the Constitution provides that cities should be created using the criteria set by the Local Government Code or Republic Act 7160, subject to approval by a majority of votes cast in a plebiscite in the political units directly affected.
Republic Act 7160 was amended by Republic Act 9009 raising the income requirement of new cities to P100 million, excluding their Internal Revenue Allotment shares from the national government.
Both Barcenas and Chiong said they were saddened by the development, especially since they have already created several new offices required of a city, such as schools divisions, prosecutors offices and others.
“This is really a problem because our budget will be affected. The budgets of the municipalities will also be affected and many will suffer,” Chiong said.
Both Mayors said their cities were supposed to be excluded from the new income requirement in RA 9009 as the bills for their conversion into cities were filed during the 11h Congress, prior to the enactment of the amendment.
According to the SC, the Constitution requires that Congress shall prescribe all the criteria for the creation of a city in the Local Government Code and not in any other law, including the Cityhood Laws.
“The Constitution is clear. The creation of local government units must follow the criteria established in the Local Government Code and not in any other law. There is only one Local Government Code. The Constitution requires Congress to stipulate in the Local Government Code all the criteria necessary for the creation of a city, including the conversion of a municipality into a city. Congress cannot write such criteria in any other law, like the Cityhood Laws,” the SC stressed.
At the same time, the SC said that the Cityhood Laws failed to comply with the provisions of Section 450 of the Local Government Code as amended by RA 9009.
It said that RA 9009 did not provide any exemption from the increased income requirement, not even to the 16 respondent municipalities.
“Since the law is clear, plain and unambiguous that any municipality desiring to convert into a city must meet the increased income requirement, there is no reason to go beyond the letter of the law in applying Section 450 of the Local Government Code, as amended by R.A. 9009,” the SC pointed out. #
Posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 and is filed under National News, Top Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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