The cost of retrofitting old buildings on Colon Street will have to be shouldered by owners. Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said he wasn’t in favor of tax breaks for something that is the “responsibility” of property owners.
(CDN File Photo)
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama yesterday said he was not in favor of giving tax breaks to owners of old buildings that would need retrofitting to withstand a powerful earthquake.
“When you talk about tax-free, ipanghatag ang tax. Ayaw. The lifeblood of government is taxes. And if taxes are not going to be also collected, then there will be no basic services in return,” he said.
The mayor said it was the responsibility of property owners to do their own retrofitting or other interventions.
“If you own a property, you have the responsibility to make it beautiful. If you own a property, it’s your responsibility to make it strong. Hence, I don’t agree on making it tax-free,” he told reporters.
At the same time, he said improvements to be made on old buildings in Colon Street would be made part of the city’s revitalization program for the country’s oldest street.
He gave this directive to City Attorney Jerone Castillo, who heads the program.
“Knowing that there are a lot of old buildings in Colon, I’m directing my Colon revitalization czar to start talking to the owners so they can comply and cooperate with what downtown revitalization would wish to achieve,” Rama said.
Colon Business Association president Jose Soberano III earlier said building owners are willing to retrofit their buildings but asked that tax breaks be given to ease the cost of these engineering interventions.
READ: Retrofit plan gains support
The Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction Council (CCDRRMC) is set to write to building owners.
Last week, disaster staff presented a computer simulation of an intensity 7 earthquake to show its impact on a major street in downtown Cebu City.
Using the Earthquake Damage Assessment System (REDAS) software of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), the staff estimated that at least 15,000 people would be affected in this scenario.
The simulation showed that old buildings, especially those built before 1992 when the National Building Code was established, would be the first to go down.
The council is appealing to building owners, administrators and engineers to assess their buildings and do repair or retrofitting work.
“I will have to integrate the supposed retrofitting within the program that we have which is focused mainly on drainage in Colon, security then the facade,” Castillo told reporters./REPORTER JOSE SANTINO S. BUNACHITA
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