INTENSIFIED TAX DRIVE EYED
THE Cebu City government will intensify its collection of taxes from delinquent real property owners as an alternative to raising taxes, City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete said.
Poblete said the City Legal Office was tasked to create a system of tax aging and study legal remedies that will compel delinquent property owners to settle their tax dues.
The City Treasurers Office is targeting to collect P560 million in real property taxes this year to help fund the city’s P4.4 billion budget requirements. But it has so far collected only P233 million.
Assistant City Administrator Leizl Gonzaga said they are doing a revalidation of Real Property Units (RPUs) in the city through tax mapping.
From January to June, they already mapped 240, 475 taxable RPUs and 12,988 tax exempt RPUs with an assessed value of P56.27 billion. Gonzaga said they hope to tax map 120,000 RPUs by yearend.
She said the tax mapping is also in preparation for a general revision of values which they plan to implement from 2014 to 2016.
The Commission on Audit (COA) also called the city government’s attention to update the market value of real properties and its assessment level in compliance with the Local Government Code which calls for a general revision every three years.
Mayor Michael Rama said he wasn’t planning to increase any taxes during his term to avoid creating “havoc”. But Councilor Margot Osmeña, the council’s budget committee chairperson, said the city has to comply with the 2012 audit observation.
“If that is the law, then we have to follow the rule of law.” she told Cebu Daily News. / Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac
CIVIL SERVICE EXAMS PASSING RATE LOW IN CENTRAL VISAYAS
CIVIL service examinees in Central Visayas registered a low passing rate of nine to 10 percent for the third straight year, the Civil Service Commission (CSC) said yesterday.
Only 10 percent out of the 7,000 examinees in Central Visayas passed the exam or three percent less than the passing percentage of the National Capital Region.
CSC personnel specialist Ricardo Gabule Jr. said factors like additional topics have made it harder for the examinees to hurdle the test.
He said fresh graduates managed to net high scores while employees get lower scores or fail to pass the exam.
Those planning to take the civil service examination should read and review everything including current events, Gabule said. They should also review the basics in English and Mathematics.
“The CSC examination is like an IQ examination,” Gabule said.
The next schedule for the examination would be on October 13 while the last day for registration will be on August 30. Registration for the exams will open at the University of San Carlos (USC) on Aug. 20 in the morning and at the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) in the afternoon. Registration will also be held in Bogo City and Danao City and at Robinson’s Place on Aug. 28 to 30. Correspondent Christine Emily L. Pantaleon
DATABASE ON DOMESTIC ABUSE CASES LAUNCHED
A DATABASE collating more than 3,000 cases of violence against women in Cebu province was launched yesterday by the Legal Alternatives for Women (Law) Center Inc. at the Cebu provincial capitol.
Frances Finch, a volunteer of Law Inc., said the database contains cases handled by Law from the year the group was founded in 1998 up to the present.
Since the names of the people involved in the cases should be kept confidential, the database can only be accessed by selected members of Law.
Finch said researchers and other interested agencies could file a request to the organization for them to provide statistical data based on the cases they’ve handled.
Each request will undergo assessment on a case to case basis depending on the nature of the data needed. She said the province through Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale committed their support on Law’s other projects. Correspondent Peter L. Romanillos