Imee Marcos bats for 60-40 IRA Sharing

Imee Mrcos during her visit in Pagadian City (Photo by Charnyl Albaracin)

PAGADIAN CITY (Jan.14, 2019) - Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos said she is supporting the implementation of the exact 60-40 sharing of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).

She noted that at present, local government units (LGUs) are only given 16 percent IRA share which is only based by the national government on the collection of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, she said.

The IRA is an LGU’s share of revenues from the national government in which provinces, independent cities, component cities, municipalities, and barangays each get a separate allotment.

Section 284 of the Local Government Code of the Philippines (RA 7160) sets up the formula for the distribution of the allotment.

Under the code, the allotment will be based upon the type of government they are and a formula centered upon their land area and population. 

All or nearly all of the revenue that a local government has to spend comes from their IRA, though some local governments also have additional local sources of revenue such as property taxes and government fees. 

For municipalities, the IRA accounts for 90% of total revenues. Since cities have more sources of local revenues, their IRA ranges from 50% to 70% of their total budget.

The IRA is automatically released to each local government unit and may not be held back by the national government for any reason.

Marcos shared the same concern of his brother, and then Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who declared the prevailing concern of the country’s LGUs over their limited options in empowering them to get through with autonomy.

Both Marcos siblings have long reiterated the most common complaint shared to them by the barangays,

It was known that 1,200 LGUs shared the P20 billion-allocation before for the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process (GPBP), GPBP, but 1,600 now share it. (CHARNYL ALBARRACIN. HARDLINE NEWS)