FINANCE Secretary Ralph G. Recto resolved concerns on the computation of the National Tax Allotment (NTA) shares for local government units (LGUs) in a productive dialogue with city mayors on January 15, 2025.
During the meeting, Secretary Recto provided a detailed line-by-line briefing to the city mayors on the NTA computations, ensuring full alignment with the principles of the 2019 Mandanas-Garcia Supreme Court ruling and relevant laws. Present during the briefing were Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, and Dumaguete City Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo.
“We did not change or amend anything. This is based on the Supreme Court ruling and a Development Budget Coordination Committee resolution, which was made in consultation with the LGUs. We are very transparent,” Secretary Recto said.
Meanwhile, a comparison of the computations between the LGUs and the Department of Finance (DOF) was also discussed, revealing that the calculations and deductions under various laws were more or less aligned.
The city mayors expressed their gratitude to the DOF for the dialogue and its openness to listening and addressing concerns. Baguio City Mayor Magalong, in particular, expressed his apologies to Secretary Recto for his earlier remarks suggesting that LGUs were being shortchanged in their NTAs.
In response, Secretary Recto assured the mayors that he is just ‘one call away’ and that the DOF is always open to having continued dialogues with LGUs to help them strengthen their fiscal capacities and optimize resource utilization to deliver more and better services to Filipinos.
Secretary Recto was joined by Chief of Staff Maria Luwalhati Dorotan Tiuseco; Undersecretary Charlito Mendoza, Undersecretary Bayani Agabin; Assistant Secretaries Karlo Adriano, Allan Quebral, and Danielle Culangen; and representatives from the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF), Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), BIR, and Bureau of Customs (BOC) during the dialogue.
Editor’s Note: This article has been sourced from the Department of Finance Facebook Page.
