Bureau of Local Government Finance Opinion

December 1, 2003 BUREAU OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE OPINION Mr. Carlito Mapa, et al . Infanta, Pangasinan S i r : This refers to the numerous complaints you lodged against Mr. Onofre Mayo, Municipal Assessor of Infanta, Pangasinan with the following accusations, to wit: 1. that Mr. Mayo registered your real properties (lands) in his name or has taken physical possession of the same without your knowledge, and without any proof; 2. that records in the Municipal Assessor's Office of Infanta revealed changes on the information as to the "Boundaries" and "Areas of real properties;" 3. that the "Names of Owners" were also changed by way of falsified Deeds of Absolute Sale without the knowledge of the true owners; 4. that the said Deeds of Sale filed at the said Office were notarized by a fake Notary Public personally known to the said Municipal Assessor; 5. the refusal of Mr. Mayo to provide explanation/clarification on the foregoing and to allow access to the records in his Office; and 6. that the said Municipal Assessor allegedly collected real property taxes without issuing the corresponding Official Receipts, and made higher assessments than the actual and correct assessed values of the real properties. In the Report of Investigation/Validation submitted by Mr. Samuel F. Delizo and Ms. Jesseca P. Lahi, both Local Assessment Operations Officer (LAOO) III, BLGF Regional Office, Region I, San Fernando City, La Union, the following findings were gathered, to wit: 1. In item No. 1, the complainants retracted their complaint as to the physical possession of their lots without their knowledge because they cannot substantiate it with valid documents. 2. With regards to item no. 2, it was explained briefly by the Regional Director to the complainants that instead of the names of boundary owners appearing as boundaries, the same were changed to Property Index Number (PIN) due to the conduct of Tax Mapping for General Revision purposes. 3. In items nos. 3 and 4, verification revealed that the alleged fake Notary Public is "already dead," and, copies of the subject Deeds of Sale indicate that the same had been executed in 1967. The Municipal Assessor was appointed in 1977. 4. With regards to item no. 5. the Regional Director explained to the complainants that all records in the Assessor's Office are public records and anybody is allowed to get certified true copies of the records upon payment of certification fees, but they are not allowed to bring the records out of the office, without the permission of the Municipal Assessor or his duly authorized representative. AEIcTD 5. Anent item no. 6, the Regional Director explained that the Municipal Assessor has no authority to collect real property taxes as this is the duty of the office of the Municipal Treasurer. It was explained further that the increase in taxes was mainly due to penalties that have accrued, the property being delinquent for more than one (1) year as evidenced by the official receipt with the corresponding computation of penalties. Relatedly, the OIC-Regional Director, Region I, in his Resolution dated October 14, 2003, copy enclosed, resolved, among others, that "it was found out that complainants were simply not aware of the systems and procedures in the matter of issuance of Tax Declarations (TDs) and wanting in knowledge as to (the) computation of real property taxes (Basic & SEF) as provided for under PD 464 and RA 5447 (as) amended by RA 7160, which gave rise to this suspicion of malfeasance in the Office of the Municipal Assessor of said municipality, resulting in the filing of this subject complaint." He, therefore, submitted that your instant letter-complaint be terminated and considered closed for lack of merit. In view hereof, this Bureau believes that the abovementioned complaints have been properly addressed in detail by our Regional Office, Region I. At the same time, the Regional Director was able to enlighten you on certain important issues involving the appraisal and assessment of real properties. In view of the foregoing, this Bureau considers the instant letter-complaint terminated for lack of merit. Very truly yours, (SGD.) MA. PRESENTACION R. MONTESA Executive Director