CEBU CITY, Philippines – Despite the lingering COVID-19 crisis, Cebu, the country’s wealthiest province, saw an increase in its income for the first quarter of 2021.
Data from the Provincial Treasurer’s Office obtained by reporters showed that the Capitol posted a 38.2 percent increase in revenue from January to March.
This meant that from P333.8 million during the same period in 2020, the Capitol’s collection jumped to P461.2 million this year.
The largest sources of Cebu province’s income were tax-based revenues which amounted to P182.6 million, up by 104.3 percent from the P89.4 million made in 2020.
Lawyer Roy Salubre, the Provincial Treasurer, said he attributes the increase to the reappraisal of real properties which they made in 2019.
“Duna tay increase nga 104 percent sa total tax revenue by reason of the increase of our collection of real property taxes. Duna man tay revision and last July 1 (2020) ni took effect,” said Salubre.
(We recorded a 104 percent increase in our total tax revenue due to the increase of our collection of real property taxes. We made revisions which took effect last July 1, 2020.)
From approximately P49.5 million in the first quarter of 2020, the Capitol’s collections from real property taxes soared to P112 million for the same period this year, accounting for an increase of 126.5 percent.
Salubre also said they saw significant increases in the collection of amusement taxes and processing fees for quarrying.
While most sources of the province’s revenue grew, the same cannot be said for Cebu’s district hospitals when the treasury only collected P11.5 million from medical, dental, laboratory, and other hospital fees, a drastic drop from the P81.5 million recorded in January to March of 2020.
Cebu province was once again named as the richest province in the Philippines for the fiscal year 2019.
The Commission on Audit (COA), in its Annual Financial Report for the local government unit (LGU) in 2019, reported that the province has assets totalling P203.9 billion. /dcb
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