IT’S A thankless job but somebody’s got to do it.
Raising taxes, or – to be exact – chairing the committee that set the tax updates, that is.
Thus, City of San Fernando Councilor Alex F. Patio, chair of the city council’s ways and means committee earned the ire of businessmen, they cried the loudest as having been hit the hardest by the tax increases, rather the assessment rates on real property.
In truth though, the increases were caused not by Patio but by the reclassification of San Fernando to a component city. The last assessment was in 1973 – all of 35 years to 2008, when the new assessment was implemented.
One can just imagine the irrelevance if not the irrationality of using a 1973 assessment in the 21st century. How much leeway – and actual gains – the city businesses got out of this could only be gargantuan. And they still have the gall to complain of this assessment tuned with the times! Insatiable greed there!
No, Patio is not saying that. Being a politician. I am saying it. Being a critic.
Patio understands full well the essentials of governance: Ways need to be found. Means need to be employed. To raise funds. Else how could projects be implemented, how could services be delivered, how could the citizens be best secured and served by their government ?
It is there that Patio’s worth as a civil servant is best proven. The ways by which he found the means have augured well for Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez’s gospel of good governance and responsible citizenship coming to life in the City of San Fernando.
With the increase in the city coffers coming from the higher tax assessment, funding becomes readily available – and sustainable – for the myriad programs and projects of the Rodriguez administration – from the subsidy to the thousands of SEED scholars to the management of the integrated schools system and the operation of the city college in the field of education; from the counterpart funding for the rehabilitation of the San Fernando River to the anti-flooding initiatives in infrastructure development, to name just two concerns.
Rather than damning Patio for the increase in the taxes they now pay, the business community in the City of San Fernando should even be thankful to him. If only for making them – through the taxes they paid – great contributors to the development of the city and its citizens. And have thus become sharers too in the various awards and recognitions heaped upon the city government’s way of governance.
The much talked about but least practiced corporate social responsibility has become a living reality to business groups in the city, thanks largely to the initiatives of Patio’s ways and means committee.
Rather than scorn and discord, the business community should accord Patio its gratitude and support.
The excellence in governance that Mayor Rodriguez has impacted in the city finds in Patio the warranty of its continuity.
Raising taxes, or – to be exact – chairing the committee that set the tax updates, that is.
Thus, City of San Fernando Councilor Alex F. Patio, chair of the city council’s ways and means committee earned the ire of businessmen, they cried the loudest as having been hit the hardest by the tax increases, rather the assessment rates on real property.
In truth though, the increases were caused not by Patio but by the reclassification of San Fernando to a component city. The last assessment was in 1973 – all of 35 years to 2008, when the new assessment was implemented.
One can just imagine the irrelevance if not the irrationality of using a 1973 assessment in the 21st century. How much leeway – and actual gains – the city businesses got out of this could only be gargantuan. And they still have the gall to complain of this assessment tuned with the times! Insatiable greed there!
No, Patio is not saying that. Being a politician. I am saying it. Being a critic.
Patio understands full well the essentials of governance: Ways need to be found. Means need to be employed. To raise funds. Else how could projects be implemented, how could services be delivered, how could the citizens be best secured and served by their government ?
It is there that Patio’s worth as a civil servant is best proven. The ways by which he found the means have augured well for Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez’s gospel of good governance and responsible citizenship coming to life in the City of San Fernando.
With the increase in the city coffers coming from the higher tax assessment, funding becomes readily available – and sustainable – for the myriad programs and projects of the Rodriguez administration – from the subsidy to the thousands of SEED scholars to the management of the integrated schools system and the operation of the city college in the field of education; from the counterpart funding for the rehabilitation of the San Fernando River to the anti-flooding initiatives in infrastructure development, to name just two concerns.
Rather than damning Patio for the increase in the taxes they now pay, the business community in the City of San Fernando should even be thankful to him. If only for making them – through the taxes they paid – great contributors to the development of the city and its citizens. And have thus become sharers too in the various awards and recognitions heaped upon the city government’s way of governance.
The much talked about but least practiced corporate social responsibility has become a living reality to business groups in the city, thanks largely to the initiatives of Patio’s ways and means committee.
Rather than scorn and discord, the business community should accord Patio its gratitude and support.
The excellence in governance that Mayor Rodriguez has impacted in the city finds in Patio the warranty of its continuity.
