Amendments to Certain Sections of C.A. No. 58 (Charter of the City of Cebu)

November 6, 1936

COMMONWEALTH ACT NO. 129

AN ACT TO AMEND CERTAIN SECTIONS OF COMMONWEALTH ACT NUMBERED FIFTY-EIGHT, ENTITLED "AN ACT CREATING THE CITY OF CEBU"

SECTION 1. Subsection (o) of section nine of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"(o) To exempt, with the concurrence of the Director of Education, deserving poor pupils from the payment of school fees or of any part thereof."

SECTION 2. Section twelve of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amend to read as follows:

"SECTION 12. Constitution and organization of Municipal Board. — The Municipal Board shall be the legislative body of the city, and shall consist of eight elective members who shall hold office for three years. The members of the Board shall elect each year from among their members a president, who for one year shall preside at all meetings of the Board at which he is present. In his absence, the Board shall elect one of its members as temporary presiding officer. The president shall sign all ordinances, all resolutions and motions directing the payment of money or creating liability, enacted or adopted by the Board. In case of sickness or absence of any member of the Board, or if for any reason it becomes necessary to maintain a quorum, the President of the Philippines may make a temporary appointment until the return to duty of the sick or absent member. During the period of such temporary appointment the person receiving the same shall possess all the rights and perform all the duties of a member of the Board.

"The members of the Board shall receive a per diem of ten pesos for each day of attendance on a session of the Board."

SECTION 3. The third paragraph of section thirteen of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"Elections for members of the Municipal Board shall be held on the date of the general triennial election, and elected members shall take office on the sixteenth day of July next following their election, and upon qualifying, shall hold office until their successors are elected and qualified. The eight candidates receiving the greatest number of votes at any election shall be declared elected, and any tie for the eighth place shall be broken by the President of the Philippines designating from among the candidates tied for such place the one to be declared elected. If any person so elected is ineligible to hold office, or if for any reason there should be failure to elect one or more members, no special election shall be called, but the vacancy shall be filled for the term by the President of the Philippines with the approval of the Commission on Appointments. Vacancies in the office of member occurring after taking office shall be filled for the unexpired term in like manner.

SECTION 4. Section sixteen of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 16. Method of transacting business by Board — Veto — Authentication and publication of ordinances. — Unless the Secretary of the Interior orders otherwise, the Board shall hold two ordinary sessions for the transaction of business during each week on days which it shall fix by resolution, and such extraordinary sessions, not exceeding thirty during any one year, as may be called by the Mayor. It shall sit with open doors unless otherwise ordered by an affirmative vote of four members. It shall keep a record of its proceedings and determine its rules of procedure not herein set forth. Four members of the Board shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business, and four affirmative votes shall be necessary for the passage of any ordinance, resolution, or motion. The ayes and noes shall be taken and recorded upon the passage of all ordinances, upon all resolutions or motions directing the payment of money or creating liability, and at the request of any member, upon any other resolution or motion. Each proposed ordinance shall be published in two newspapers of general circulation in the city and shall not be discussed or enacted by the Board until after the third day following such publication. Each ordinance enacted by the Board, and each resolution or motion directing the payment of money or creating liability, shall be forwarded to the Mayor for his approval. Within ten days after the receipt of the ordinance, resolution or motion, the Mayor shall return it with his approval or veto. If he does not return it within that time, it shall be deemed to be approved. If he returns it with his veto, his reasons therefor in writing shall accompany it. It may then be again enacted by the affirmative votes of five members of the Board, and again forwarded to the Mayor for his approval, and if within ten days after its receipt he does not again return it with his veto, it shall be deemed to be approved. If within said time he again returns it with his veto, it shall be forwarded forthwith to the Secretary of the Interior for his approval or disapproval, which shall be final. The Mayor shall have the power to veto any particular item or items of an appropriation ordinance, or of an ordinance, resolution or motion directing the payment of money or creating liability, but the veto shall not affect the item or items to which he does not object. The item or items objected to shall not take effect except in the manner heretofore provided in this section as to ordinances, resolutions and motions returned to the Board with his veto. "Each approved ordinance shall be sealed with the city seal, signed by the presiding officer of the Board and the secretary, and recorded in a book kept for that purpose; shall be published in two newspapers of general circulation in the city within ten days after its approval; and shall take effect and be in force on and after the twentieth day following its publication, if no date is fixed in the ordinance. With the exception of ordinances vetoed by the Mayor when said veto has not been sustained by the Secretary of the Interior, all ordinances approved by the Municipal Board shall be forwarded to the Provincial Board of the Province of Cebu for approval. In case of disapproval, the Municipal Board or the city Mayor may appeal to the Department of the Interior, the action of which shall be final."

SECTION 5. Subsection (n) of section seventeen of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows.

"(n) To tax vehicles and draft animals not paying any insular tax '

SECTION 6. Section twenty-one of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 21. Appointment and removal of officials and employees. — With the approval of the Commission on Appointments of the National Assembly, the President of the Philippines shall appoint the fiscal of the city and his assistant, the judge of the Municipal Court and, in case of a temporary vacancy on such court, an acting judge therefor, the city engineer and his assistant, the chief of police and his assistant, the chief of the fire department and his assistant, the city treasurer, the city assessor, and the city superintendent of schools. Subject to the provisions of the Civil Service Law, the Mayor shall appoint all other officers and employees of the city whose appointment is not otherwise provided for by law. The Mayor may suspend, and remove, any appointive city officer or employee not appointed by the President of the Philippines and may recommend to the President of the Philippines the suspension or removal of any city officer or employee appointed by him. Any such suspension or removal by the Mayor shall be appealable to the Department Head, whose determination of the matter shall be final."

SECTION 7. The first paragraph of section thirty-eight of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 38. Regular and acting judges of Municipal Court. — There shall be a Municipal Court for the City of Cebu, for which a judge shall be appointed, to be known as judge of the Municipal Court. He shall receive a salary of three thousand six hundred pesos per annum."

SECTION 8. Section fifty-two of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 52. List of taxable real estate, how made — Examination of witnesses and register of deeds records. — The city assessor shall make the list of the taxable real estate in the city, and the names of the owners shall be arranged in the order of the lot and block numbers with a brief description opposite each such name of the property owned by such owners and the cash value thereof. In making this list, the city assessor shall take into consideration any sworn statement made by the owners of the property, but shall not be prevented thereby from considering other evidence on the subject and exercising his own judgment in respect thereto. For the purpose of completing this list, he and his authorized representatives are empowered to enter upon the real estate for the purpose of examining and measuring the same, and to summon witnesses, administer oaths to them, and subject them to examination concerning the ownership and the amount of real estate and its cash value. It shall be the duty of the city assessor so far as is necessary, to examine the records of the office of the register of deeds showing the ownership of real estate in the city."

SECTION 9. Section fifty-five of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 55. Action in case real estate has escaped taxation. — If it shall come to the knowledge of the city assessor that any taxable real estate in the city has escaped listing, it shall be his duty to list and value the same at the time and in the manner provided in the next succeeding section and to charge against the owner thereof the taxes due for the current year and for all other years since the original assessment under the city charter was made, and the taxes thus assessed shall be legal, and collectible by all the remedies herein provided, and if the failure of the city assessor to assess such taxes at the time when they should have been assessed was due to any fault or negligence on the part of the owner of such property, then penalties shall be added to such back taxes as though they had been assessed at the time when they should have been assessed."

 

SECTION 10. Section fifty-eight of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 58. Time and manner of appealing to board of tax appeals. — In case the Municipal Board, or any owner of real estate or his authorized agent, shall feel aggrieved by any decision of the city assessor under the preceding section of this article, such Board, owner or agent may, within twenty days after the taxpayer receives notice of such decision, appeal to the board of tax appeals The appeal shall be perfected by filing a written notice of the same with the city assessor and it shall be the duty of that officer forthwith to transmit the appeal to the board of tax appeals with all written evidence in his possession relating to such assessment and valuation."

SECTION 11. The first paragraph of section fifty-nine of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 59. Constitution and compensation of board of tax appeals. — The board of tax appeals shall be composed of five members who shall be appointed by the President of the Philippines with the approval of the Commission on Appointments on the first day of September of each year in which the first regular session of the National Assembly shall begin, three of whom shall be owners of real estate in the city of which number, two shall be selected from a list of ten persons to be submitted to the President of the Philippines by the "Asociacion de Proprietarios de Cebu," which list shall be submitted to him by the said association not later than the fifteenth day of August of the same year. Should the said list not be submitted by the aforesaid association within the time fixed herein, the President of the Philippines shall select such two members in his own discretion."

SECTION 12. The first and second paragraphs of section sixty-two of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight are hereby amended to read as follows:

"SECTION 62. Annual tax and penalties — Extension, remission of the payment of the tax. — An annual tax of seven-eighths of one per centum on the assessed value of all real estate in the city subject to taxation as hereinbefore provided is hereby levied. All taxes shall be due and payable on the first day of January of each year, and if any taxpayer shall fail to pay the taxes assessed against him on or before the thirtieth day of June of the year for which such taxes are due, he shall be delinquent in such payment and shall be subject, as a penalty for such delinquency, to an additional tax of twenty per centum of the amount of the original tax if both the original and the additional tax be paid during the first six months of such delinquency, and if not so paid, to an additional tax of twenty-five per centum of the amount of the original tax; the additional tax to be collected at the same time and in the same manner as the original tax.

"At the option of the taxpayer, the tax due for any year may be paid in two installments, the first of such installments to consist of four-eighths of one per centum of the assessed valuation of the property and the second to consist of the remainder of the tax for the year. In such cases the first installment must be paid on or before the thirtieth day of June of the year for which the tax is due, and the second may be paid at any time prior to the first day of January of the following year, but if the first installment of the tax for any year is not paid on or before the thirtieth day of June of such year, then the whole of that year's tax shall be delinquent and the penalty due thereon as hereinbefore provided. If any taxpayer, having paid the first installment of his tax for any year, shall fail to pay the second installment thereof before the first day of January of the following year, the penalty collected shall be twenty per centum of the amount of such second installment during the first six months of said following year, and thereafter twenty-five per centum of such amount."

SECTION 13. Section seventy-six of Commonwealth Act Numbered Fifty-eight is hereby amended to read as follows:.

"SECTION 76. Power to levy special assessments for certain purposes. — The Municipal Board may, by ordinance duly approved, provide for the levying and collection, by special assessments of the real estate comprised within the district or section of the city especially benefited, of the cost, or a part thereof not less than sixty per centum, of laying out, opening, constructing, straightening, widening extending, grading, paving, curbing, walling, deepening or otherwise establishing, repairing, enlarging, or improving public avenues, roads, streets, alleys, sidewalks, parks, plazas, bridges, landing places, wharves, piers, docks, levees, reservoirs, waterworks, water mains, water courses, esteros, canals, drains, and sewers, including the cost of acquiring the necessary land. Within the meaning of this article, all real estate comprised within the district benefited, except lands or buildings owned by the United States of America, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, or the City of Cebu, shall be subject to the payment of the special assessment, based upon the valuation of such real estate as shown by the books of the city assessor, or its present value as fixed by said officer in the first instance if the property does not appear of record in his books according to the valuation whereof the special tax has to be made, computed and assessed."

SECTION 14. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.