In this Dec. 20, 2013, photo, restaurant owner Joseph Bonavitacola, right, talks during an interview, along with his family members, at his pizza restaurant in TaclobanCity. The Italian businessman, who has lived in the city for 20 years with his Filipino wife, reopened the place less than three weeks after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” devastated about 15,000 businesses. Only about 20 have reopened, the city’s treasurer says. AP PHOTO/ACHMAD IBRAHIM
TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—Supertyphoon “Yolanda” shut down many business establishments, resulting in severe financial woes for Tacloban, according to the city’s treasurer, Zosima Cordaño.
With only about 20 of the 15,000 businesses resuming operations, the city government is generating only a fraction of the business tax it earned in 2012, she said.
Cordaño said in an interview on Monday that Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez had to propose the revision of the P960-million annual budget approved by the city council in October last year to P629 million.
Under the scaled-down 2014 city budget, P478.5 million will come from Tacloban’s share of the internal revenue allotment from the national government and P150.5 million from local taxes. In 2013, Tacloban City’s local tax collection reached more than P301.9 million.
Tacloban needs at least P13 billion to rehabilitate the city ravaged by Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) on Nov. 8, City Administrator John Tecson Lim said earlier.
Cordaño said her office had so far collected “very low” taxes from businesses since the typhoon.
The city treasurer said collections for November and December last year reached only P1.4 million and P3 million, respectively. Before Yolanda, the collection target was P9.6 million for November and P17.5 million for December.
Since the first week of January, Tacloban City has so far collected only P2.1 million in business tax. In January last year, the city’s business tax collection was P15 million.
Only about 20 of the 15,000 firms have renewed their business permits, she added.
“That is why we are appealing to them to operate again. The city mayor has given them six months of moratorium for them to pay their taxes, including those of the last quarter of 2013. And we believe the period is more than enough,” Cordaño said.
The moratorium covers the months of January to June of this year.
She said that with the financial difficulties, the city government had to do some belt-tightening, including reducing by half the 1,000 workers it had planned to hire for three months and limiting the use of water and electricity.
But Cordaño stressed that basic services, like health delivery and garbage collection, would continue.
Banks have given the city a six-month moratorium on debt payments. It owes Land Bank of the Philippines P46.8 million and has a standing debt of P29.8 million to Development Bank of the Philippines.
“We really need help from our national government. If there is a place among the Yolanda-hit areas that really needs much help, it should be Tacloban,” Cordaño said.
“We are the center of trade and industry in the region. Whatever economic development we will enjoy will definitely trickle to the other parts of the region,” she said.
Originally posted: 8:56 pm | Monday, January 13th, 2014
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