Press Release
November 19, 2008

PIMENTEL LAUDS SC RULING STRIPPING 16 CITIES OF STATUS

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the Supreme Court decision voiding the cityhood status of 16 cities will bring back order and sanity to the practice of elevating local government units to higher levels.

The high tribunal ruled that these cities should revert back to being municipalities on the ground that they fell short of the requirements mandated by law.

"The Supreme Court ruling invalidating their conversion from municipalities into cities is good for the rule of law," he said.

Pimentel lauded the vigilance shown by Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who penned the 7-5 decision of the high court, and other justices in stressing the need for faithful compliance to the Constitution and the laws of the country.

"We legislators should carefully adhere to the requirements of the law," he said.

The 16 cities that will revert back to municipal status are: Baybay, Leyte; Bogo, Carcar and Naga in Cebu; Borongan, Eastern Samar; Catbalogan, Samar; Tandag, Surigao del Sur; Tayabas, Quezon; Lamitan, Basilan; Tabuk, Kalinga; Bayugan, Agusan del Sur; Batac, Ilocos Norte; Mati, Davao Oriental; Guihulngan, Negros Oriental; Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte, and El Salvador, Misamis Oriental.

In its decision, the high court said the laws which created these cities could not claim to be exempted from Republic Act 9009, which took effect in June, 2001, amending section 450 of the Local Government Code to increase the annual income requirement for a municipality to become a city from P20 million to P100 million.

Pimentel, principal author of the Code, recalled that he had opposed the elevation of the municipalities that were aspiring to become cities when he found out that there was a misinterpretation of the statutory requirement on income.

He said that the municipalities concerned added their share of the Internal Revenue Allotment in the computation of their annual income to qualify for the income requirement for cityhood.

Pimentel said this did not conform with the intent of the Code which provides that the minimum income required to qualify for cityhood "should be determined on the basis of locally generated funds, that is without adding on it the incoming funds allocated by the Code as internal revenue share."

"As a result of that erroneous interpretation, bill creating cities literally flew, like a plague of locusts in the Old Testament, into the calendar if the Senate from the House of Representatives," he said.

Pimentel said one of the principal motivations for the creation of new cities is to enable them to get a bigger share of the IRA. But he said this has the adverse effect of shrinking the size of the pie - the total amount of IRA that is divided among the existing cities.

"The major financial implication of increasing the number of cities in the country is that the internal revenue share of cities would be reduced. And on the side of the municipalities, concerned, their conversion would raise their internal revenue shares tremendously," he said.

The number of cities had dramatically risen to more than 140 last year. Before the enactment of the Local Government Code in 1991, there were only 50 cities.

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