To justify the income requirement for the declaration of highly urbanized status in the case of component cities, the House of Representatives on Monday has approved on second reading a bill which seeks to rationalize the monetary needs for the creation of a municipality and a province.
The House Bill 6177 amends “certain provisions of Republic Act No. 7160, as amended, otherwise known as the Local Government Code of 1991, specifically requisites for the creation of municipality (Section 442), requirements for a city to be classified as highly urbanized (Section 452), duty of the President to grant highly urbanized city status (Section 453) and requisites for the creation of a province (Section 461).”
This also seeks to correct the imbalance in income requirements created by RA No. 9009 entitled “An Act Amending Section 450 of RA No. 7160, otherwise known as the ‘Local Government Code of 1991’, as amended, by increasing the average annual requirement for a municipality or cluster of barangays to be converted into a Component City.”
According to 3rd District Cebu Deputy Speaker Gwendolyn Garcia, one of the authors of the bill, under the present law, a city may not be created if the income of a municipality or a cluster of barangays falls below P100 million.
Garcia also clarified that P2.5 million budget is needed to create a new municipality, and for a mere P20 million, a new province may be formed.
“Likewise, we have a situation where, despite the P100 million threshold in the creation of a city, a highly urbanized city may be declared on the basis of a P50 million income,” Garcia said.
Moreover, under the amended Section 452(a), “a city shall be classified as a highly urbanized city based on the following requirements: a minimum population of 200,000 inhabitants as certified by the PSA; and a locally-generated annual income for the last two consecutive years of at least P250 million based on 2000 constant prices, as certified by the Department of Finance (DOF).”
The amendment to Section 453, meanwhile, states that it shall be the duty of Congress to pass a joint resolution to declare a city as highly urbanized within 30 days after it shall have met the minimum requirements prescribed under the Act upon proper determination, therefore, provided that the declaration shall be ratified in a plebiscite by the qualified voters of the province in which the city geographically belongs.
