Population drop nags Isabela town

ILAGAN, Isabela – While lawmakers are looking for solutions to control the country’s booming population, 150 municipal workers – and their families – in the southeastern Isabela town of Jones face bleak days ahead after losing their jobs due to the municipality’s decreasing constituency.

The decreasing population of Jones town has resulted in a significant decrease in its Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), which the national government gives annually to all local government units as their share of national revenues generated from taxes and other fees.

“We cannot do anything about it, except to (resort to such measures like laying off the workers),” said Mayor Florante Raspado, whose town’s annual IRA has been reduced from P6.6 million to P6.3 million – or a loss of at least P300,000.

This, after the Department of Budget and Management noted the decrease in the town’s population – one of the bases for the computation of a local government unit’s annual IRA.

Besides population, the DBM also considers land area and annual income in computing the IRA.

Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range, Jones, formerly one of the hotbeds of communist insurgency in Cagayan Valley, has reportedly been registering a steady decrease in population as its residents leave town to look for better opportunities elsewhere.

The town’s drastic IRA reduction, according to Raspado, was also aggravated by this year’s 60 percent decrease in local tax collections, prompting them with no recourse but to retrench casual and contractual employees.

Raspado though assured the laid-off workers that they would be rehired once the town’s income returns to normal.

Besides the retrenchment of workers, the town’s Sangguniang Bayan passed a resolution for local offices of national government agencies, whose operations are partly subsidized by the municipal government, to also resort to cost-cutting measures.