Pinamungajan’s new tax ordinance opposed

CEBU, Philippines - Some town councilors and residents of the municipality of Pinamungajan, Cebu has asked the Provincial Board to stop the implementation of an ordinance recently passed by the Sangguniang Bayan.

The Tax Ordinance revising the contract of lease of market stalls was passed last June 6, 2013, duly approved by then mayor Geraldine Yapha on June 19, and was forwarded to the office of the Provincial Secretary the next day.

A letter dated June 26, 2012 was received by the office of the Provincial Secretary asking the PB to declare said municipal ordinance null and void, citing “ultra vires” which means ‘beyond the powers’.

The letter was signed by councilors Bonifacio Alqueza, Oscar Cerna and Mark Joseph Gerongco, who is the president of the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation; former councilor Marcelo Gerongco, who lost in the vice mayoralty race in the last elections; and former provincial election supervisor, lawyer Reynaldo Ferenal.

Gerongco, Alqueza and Cerna ran under One Cebu Party led by Mayor Glen Baricuatro against the group of then mayor and defeated congressional candidate Geraldine Yapha of the Liberal Party in the last May 13 elections.

They alleged that councilors allied with Yapha posed as market committee members and at the same time SB members.

“The act of the SB in crafting an ordinance purposely subrogating themselves the powers which is beyond the scope or their authority or, were not patently granted to them in law, is null and void and cannot be validated nor it can be enforced,” the letter reads.

The aggrieved party insisted that the control of the public market is confined under the exclusive power and authority of the mayor as provided by law and not within the powers of the sanggunian.

They alleged that said ordinance was designed to clip and usurp the powers of the mayor.

The ordinance empowers the market committee composed of the majority of the SB members of full and absolute authority to manage and operate the public market business including the power to screen applicants or any interested micro-business entrepreneurs.

It also provides the right of the members of the market committee to employ force and breaking inside the leased market stalls or cubicles without them answerable to any civil or criminal liabilities.

The said letter is now with the PB committee on laws and review of ordinances chaired by Board Member Joven Mondigo Jr.

However, Baricuatro said that pending ratification of the said ordinance, it was already implemented before he assumed office last July 1. — (FREEMAN)