Lawmaker questions IRA allotments before SC

MANILA, Philippines - Bataan Rep. Enrique Garcia Jr. has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to compel Malacañang to distribute to provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays their Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) in accordance with law and the Constitution.

In his petition last week, Garcia said Congress has committed a grievous error in limiting the IRA of local governments to a percentage of the national internal revenue instead of national taxes as a whole.

The Local Government Code provision requiring that IRA be a percentage of the national internal revenue taxes is unconstitutional, he added.

Since 1995, local governments have been receiving their IRA from the national government.

Garcia said the national government continues to commit an error in the interpretation and/or implementation of the Constitution resulting to a huge shortfall in the IRA of   provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays.

In 2009, 2010 and 2011, the national government failed to remit P233.1 billion in IRA to local governments.

Garcia asked the SC to compute the IRA of local governments on the basis of the national tax collections, including all tax collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs and desist from deducting from the national tax collections any tax, item or amount not authorized by law to be deducted for the purpose of computing the IRA.

He also asked the court to order Malacañang to submit a detailed computation of the IRA from 1995 to 2014 and determine from there the IRA shortfall and distribute this shortfall to local governments.

Garcia named as respondents Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares and Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon.