| Congressional horse trading, if we may call it that way, enabled Sen. Nene Pimentel to have his pet bill be tabled- a bill leading towards the empowerment of local government units. The proposals are of course long due, because of so much opposition from Luzon legislators,fortunately they are now more open to the idea. Had they allowed this-the empowerment and eventual growth of local government units, specially mindanao LGU's- we should have none of the so called food shortage. Even with the simple economic provision of allowing LGU's to taxed business organizations doing business in their locality, the financial leverage would have been gargantuan. Imagine how much funds would davao, cagayan de oro, or general santos cities generate, and how big would the effect of that huge funds do for the island of mindanao. It is beyond me why a manila based business organization would do business in a locality yet they have to pay their taxes in makati or quezon city. Why would PNOC pay their taxes somewhere, when they are exploiting the resources of Kidapawan City? Or why would Agro Ventures pay taxes where their main office is somewhere in Metro Manila, and not in cagayan de oro or Malaybalay Cities? This is robbery in your face, in our face.The measure is facing a rough challenge,though, and I am not sure if it would even hit second base. I say so because mindanao legislators are normally outnumbered in the august(is this the right word) hall of congress. Perhaps one strategy that mindanao congressmen could do is to create more congressional districts so that the honorables would increase in number. |
