NO MORE TAX BREAK

Does this image of Vice Ganda and male escorts offend? The promotion billboard on Juan Luna Avenue in Cebu city was ordered taken down but the concert will go on.

Cebu City Council revokes amusement tax exemption for Vice Ganda’s concert

The Cebu City Council yesterday revoked the tax exemption it gave for the upcoming concert of  comedian Vice Ganda, whose promotion banners  were ordered taken down this week for being too “sexy”.

This means local concert organizers will have to pay the amusement tax which is  10 percent of gross ticket sales or P20,000 whichever is higher.

VICE GANDA (INQUIRER)

The Cebu City Council reached the decision yesterday during its regular session.

Councilor Gerardo Carillo pointed out that City Hall was earning only a small amount by waiving the tax.

“This is a big show. If they only pay P5,000, it will be grossly disadvantageous to the city,” Carillo said.

The turnaround by city legislators closely followed the take down of two  billboards promoting the July 19 concert.

BACKSTORY: Billboard ‘too sexy’ for City Hall | Another Vice Ganda billboard removed; concert to proceed |  Archdiocese speaks out against explicit billboards

Organizers preempted a confiscation and removed two billboards in Cebu City on Tuesday after being told that City Administrator Lucelle Mercado had verbally ordered the banners  removed because the City Anti-Indecency Board (CAIB), which she heads, had received complaints about the provocative image of of the TV celebrity who posed in a revealing red gown surrounded by shirtless men lying around her.

Records from the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) show that the local organizers TSE Live. Inc paid  P5,700 to the city government.

The amount  refers to P5,000 for the registration and the Mayor’s Special Permit, and P700 for miscellaneous fees for security and others.

“It’s really disadvantageous if we can’t collect from their ticket sales,” City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas told Cebu Daily News.

As a comparison, the city was able to collect P114,000 in amusement taxes from the Pentatonix Concert also held in the Waterfront hotel last June 7, she said.

The same City Council had earlier approved the amusement tax exemption on motion of Eugenio Gabuya Jr., who said concert organizers would be donating an amount to a still-to-be-identified charity.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s approval of the tax exemption based on the council’s earlier resolution was included in the agenda yesterday.

Keen on collecting more for the city’s coffers, Cuevas said she would send treasury personnel to check ticket sales of  The Vice Gandang Ganda sa Sarili sa Cebu (Eh di Wow!) concert  which will be mounted at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino on July 19.

The show is the Cebu leg of a series of concerts of the popular gay comedian, a talent of ABS-CBN network which is presenting the concert.

Concert ticket prices range from P780 in the lower balcony to P3,850 for reserved seats in the Platinum section.

The upcoming concert was classified “R-13” or restricted to adults by the organizers.

Sought for comment, TSE Live in a statement to CDN said the would still have to verify the revocation of the tax break.

“We have not been informed by the council or Ma’m Diwa yet so we will have to verify it first.  As of now , we have no comment on the issue,” the firm said.

The organizers said that their previous exemption had an arrangement where they would be donating P10,000 each to three charities identified by the City Council — the Philippine Councilor League, the Task Force on Street Children and Philippine Teen Challenge.

But if the tax revocation pushes through, TSE said they would no longer donate these amounts to these charities.

CAIB chairman Mercado earlier said the image use in the billboards for the event were  “sexually suggestive” and a violation of the city anti-indecency ordinance.

Billboards were located along Escario St. in barangay Kamputhaw, in Ayala Access Road near the Pope John Paul XXIII Seminary and along J. Luna Ave. in front of  the F. Urot Memorial National High School.

Mayor Michael Rama, who said he too had received complaints about the billboards, said the city exercised “police power,” in ordering their takedown  even without an approved resolution from the CCAIB.

Mercado said the CAIB or City Hall would not, however, go after newspaper advertisements of the concert that carry the “sexually suggestive” image which she said  violates City Ordinance No. 1408 or the Anti-Indecency Ordinance.

A new version of newspapers ads appeared yesterday showing Vice Ganda alone in a profile shot from the waist up. She was still wearing a blonde wig and her red gown.

Under section 7 (e) of the ordinance, Cebu City considers illegal  parties that  “to publish, print, exhibit, display, or distribute, circulate or cause the publication, or those text messages, statements, and/or manuscript printed and/or published in those papers, pictures and magazines, which are indecent, vulgar, lewd, obscene, and pornographic, and which are inimical to the preservation of peace, morals, good customs, and public policy.”

No CAIB board resolution was passed on the matter but some members voiced their support like Councilor Lea Japson, head of the committee on women and family affairs.

She said she told Mercado about the text compalints she received from private individuals and religious groups complaining about the billboards.

Prosecutor Aida Sanchez of the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office, said she hasn’t seen the billboards herself yet.

“From what I heard from someone, not a CCAIB member, Vice Ganda was wearing a red gown with a tear up to the waist in  a sea of naked boys. Surely that’s scandalous,” Sanchez told CDN.

Other CCAIB members are lawyer Maria Teresa Casino of the prosecutor’s office, Maribel Abella of the City Legal Office, Cipriano Balili of the Department of Education (Deped), Julliet Balboa from the religious sector, Carole Diola from the business sector, Espiridion Yting Jr. from the socio-civic sector and barangay captain Altea Lim from the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC).