High QC tax, fees sent ex-pilot on lonely flight to be next mayor

SAMONTE: Forced out of his shell to seek answers, changes. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Retired airline pilot Henry Samonte recalled how his “one-man crusade for good governance” in Quezon City became his most challenging solo flight.

It all stemmed from the unanswered questions he raised nine years ago concerning City Hall’s decision to increase the real estate tax and business fees.

Now a businessman at 71, Samonte is one of the two challengers of reelectionist Mayor Herbert “Bistek” Bautista in the May elections. The other candidate is John Charles Chang.

“I’m actually an introvert, but I’ve been forced out of my shell because of what’s happening,” said Samonte, who became outspoken about local issues starting in 2004—with the Inquirer apparently providing the spark.

“There was an article in the Inquirer by (columnist) Neal Cruz and the title was ‘Greedy QC councilors want to hike real estate tax.’ I prepared a letter of inquiry addressed to almost 20 councilors. I hand-delivered it and gave a copy to (then) Mayor (Feliciano) Belmonte,” he recalled in an interview last week.

Despite being required by law to answer such queries within 15 days of receipt, he said, “none of them ever replied.”

Four years later, the taxes he had to pay for his barbershop suddenly increased by P3,000, prompting him to again seek an explanation, this time from the city treasurer’s office.

The reply he got came in the form of a memo signed by the city treasurer, explaining that the increase in business tax was to make up for lost government revenues.

The following year, he saw Belmonte at the mayor’s office to personally ask for the reason behind the increase. “I was asking him what was the criteria or basis for the increase. He stood up and said: ‘Kung hindi mo kayang magbayad, sorry. Eh di magsara ka (If you cannot pay, sorry. Just close your shop).’”

“I was merely asking for the reason and did not expect the mayor to answer that way and tell me to close my shop if I couldn’t pay for the mayor’s permit,” he said.

Looking deeper

The incident did not stop Samonte from looking deeper. In August 2009, he went to the Office of the Ombudsman to sue the city treasurer for increasing the tax and fees without a supporting ordinance, an act he deemed tantamount to usurpation of authority.

The complaint remains pending in the antigraft body where, he said, a clerk told him that no case filed against the city treasurer had ever prospered. That remark left him wondering if “an ordinary person no longer enjoyed the right to demand improvements in the performance of the government…(where) officials were acting unilaterally.”

“Upon leaving the Office of the Ombudsman that day, I realized that I have to run for mayor. I have to change the system from within,” he said.

Samonte first tried to do it in 2010, when he faced six opponents including then Vice Mayor Bautista, but failed. Now on his second attempt, he remains without a political machinery to speak of.

Even his own family members “were caught by surprise” when he filed his certificate of candidacy. “I can read it in their eyes.”

Two weeks into the campaign period, Samonte has so far written homeowners’ organizations about his credentials and platform of government.

He has also uploaded videos on YouTube wherein he presents himself as an ordinary man relying on his own pension and savings to wage a campaign. One clip shows Samonte, in a white shirt and a white pair of shorts, discussing his plans and printing out his own campaign materials on recycled paper.

Asked what he would consider his edge over the incumbent Bautista, he said: “He has already offended the marginalized poor because of his penchant for demolishing depressed areas. There is also the socialized housing tax ordinance which infuriated those in subdivisions, the middle and upper classes.”

Samonte said his agenda to reduce local taxes to more “tolerable, practical levels” might appeal to “the silent, dissatisfied majority.”

If elected, he would also hire a private auditing firm to check the city’s finances, see if the expenditures were justified, and plug “loopholes for possible graft and corruption by implementing sound practices in public bidding.” He also wanted businesses like paper and plastic recycling to flourish in Quezon City.

Agriculturist to aviator

Samonte finished agriculture in 1961 at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. He later studied to be a pilot and logged in 30 years mostly with Philippine Airlines.

Before becoming an aviator, he was as a supervising landscaper for the now defunct Philippine Homesite and Housing Corp. (precursor of the National Housing Authority). He also worked as a newspaper ad solicitor and an agriculturist in Nueva Ecija province.

Samonte said he is currently into cattle-raising in Cebu province. He also owns a barbershop in Quezon City’s Roxas District, operates a passenger jeepney plying the Roces-Cubao route, and rents out a 13-room dormitory in Manila.