QC residents trash yearly garbage fee

Mayor Herbert Bautista: Not a big burden. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Is the Quezon City government in need of additional revenues that it has to charge homeowners a garbage fee?

This was the question raised by some residents who voiced their opposition to the recent signing into law of a new ordinance that would require them to pay an annual fee for trash collection.

The ordinance introduced by Councilor Victor Ferrer Jr. of the first district was approved by Mayor Herbert Bautista on Dec. 26.

In an interview with the Inquirer on Monday, Bautista said the new regulation would take effect as soon as it is published in a generally circulated newspaper next month.

The annual garbage fee, which ranges from P100 to P500 depending on the size of a homeowner’s lot, condominium unit or apartment, is to be paid simultaneously with the real property tax.

Bautista said the new fee was expected to generate between P50 million and P60 million every year. The additional funding, he added, would go to the city’s environmental projects such as urban reforestation, waterway cleanup operations and even disaster risk reduction and management.

“If P100 to P500 is paid on an annual basis, I do not think it will be a big burden,” Bautista told the Inquirer.

But residents are questioning why the city, known to be among the richest in the country in terms of revenues, needs more money.

A check of its website showed that Quezon City’s gross revenue collection for 2012 totaled P13.69 billion, an increase of P750 million compared to that of 2011. The figure dwarfed the P11.37 billion total revenue in 2012 of Makati, traditionally the country’s richest city.

“Quezon City has a lot of money so I wonder why the government has to collect more,” Mazen Obanil told the Inquirer.

Redundant

A writer who has been renting an apartment in Tandang Sora for six years with her husband and son, she called the garbage fee redundant as local taxpayers were already funding garbage collection services. “This is too much,” she said.

Kaye Morales, 26, a radio station staffer living in a condominium unit at Barangay (village) South Triangle, agreed that imposing a new fee was unreasonable.

There was no logical explanation for her to fork out additional money on top of her monthly condo rent to avail of a basic service that should be provided by the city government, she said.

For his part, businessman John Chang, 60, who lives in Barangay Del Monte, told the Inquirer: “Quezon City has money. The city is not lacking funds. A local government unit only raises taxes and imposes fees when it lacks funds.”

Chang, who has run for mayor twice against Bautista, said he was among those invited to a public consultation held in November on the proposed garbage fee and a plan to raise business taxes.

A public consultation is usually held before the Quezon City Council deliberates on enacting an ordinance or a resolution. It is called by the proponent of the measure as well as the council committees studying the feasibility of a draft legislation.

Chang described the meeting held in a mall on Edsa corner Quezon Avenue and attended by just a handful of participants as a mere “formality,” saying the city government was already bent then on approving the twin measures.

He pointed out that when Quezon City Mayor and now Speaker Feliciano Belmonte raised taxes in 2001, it was justified because the local government had a budget deficit. “But now, the city has more than enough funds so there is no justification for the collection from its constituents,” he said.

Chang added that the ordinance’s author, Ferrer, had told the gathering that the city government was looking into raising an additional P250 million from the new taxes to build more school buildings.

Greedy

“Everything boils down to one thing; they are just being greedy,” Chang said.

Based on the ordinance, an annual garbage fee will be collected from all domestic households in Quezon City ranging from P100 to P500, to be computed based on the land area of a resident’s lot. It provides a separate schedule of fees for condominium and socialized housing units where P25 will be collected for a unit with an area of less than 40 square meters; P50 for an area of 41 sqm to 60 sqm; P75 for an area of 61 sqm to 100 sqm; P100 for 101 sqm to 150 sqm; and P200 for 151 sqm to 200 sqm or more.

In the case of residents in buildings, the homeowners’ association of a high-rise condominium will be required to pay the annual garbage fee based on the total lot size of the entire condominium.

Owners of high-rise apartment units, on the other hand, are to pay the annual garbage fee computed based on the total lot size of the apartment and an additional garbage fee based on the schedule of fees on the size of the unit actually occupied by a tenant.

A violator of the ordinance will be fined 25 percent of the garbage fee on top of the amount due and a two percent monthly interest until the fee is paid fully.

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