LCP to sue Comelec over proposed cityhood plans
The League of Cities of the Philippines is poised to sue the Commission on Elections over plans to give cityhood status to several municipalities.
Probably by next week, we will the file a petition with the Supreme Court against the poll body, LCP national president, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas said yesterday.
"The petition is now ready," he stressed.
Treñas said that they will question the validity of the cityhood bills and ask the High Tribunal to enjoin the Comelec from conducting plebiscites in the concerned municipalities.
The 117-strong LCP has expressed opposition to the Senate's plan to convert 12 municipalities into cities. They have declared that they will campaign against senators who voted in favor of the bill.
The bills, he said, aim to convert municipalities into cities even if they have not complied with the income requirement under Republic Act 9009.
Under the said law, for a municipality to attain cityhood status, it must have earned an income of at least P100 million for two years.
"These local government units only earned P5 million," Treñas pointed out.
Moreover, he said that the existing cities in the country will suffer a reduction in their internal revenue allotments if there would be additional cities. On this, Sen. Ralph Recto has proposed a P3.2 billion amelioration fund that would compensate for the reduction in the IRA of the existing cities.
The LCP has issued an official statement on the cityhood bills, calling for respect of the Local Government Code.
"The League of Cities of the Philippines is expressing its vehement objections to the purported move by the Senate to pass the 12 cityhood bills of municipalities which did not meet the requirements provided for in the Local Government Code of 1991 as amended by Republic Act 9009," the statement says.
However, the LCP clarified that they "...feel neither abhorrence nor rejection over any initiative on the part of a municipality to be converted into a city. However, what we strongly object is the conversion of a municipality that is not yet, by itself, prepared to become a city."
The LCP wondered "(i)f these municipalities cannot even manage to meet the basic income requirement, how can they be expected to perform and deliver as cities?"
The mayor's league warned that "(t)he passage of these 12 cityhood bills would create a very dangerous precedent. For whatever legal and rational reasons that have been long established through the brilliant minds of our legislators, there is nothing to prevent other municipalities from seeking the same 'special treatment' by invoking the constitutional mandate of 'equal protection of laws.'"