CARAGA CASE IN POINT
Chiz questions reduction of LGU share in 'national wealth rebates'

Even with the supposed mining boom in the country last year, the local government unit (LGU) share in the "national wealth rebates" had gone down significantly, prompting opposition Senator Chiz Escudero to question the decrease.

"The region of CARAGA proves my point here. There is supposedly a mining boom last year and yet the LGU share from income in the utilization and development of national wealth has gone down significantly," Escudero said.

The senator explained that under Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code, host LGUs are awarded 40 percent of national government income from extraction of natural resources in their respective territories.

"These include mining taxes and royalties from forestry and fishery charges, including its share in any co-production venture or production sharing activities," Escudero said.

In other words, he said it can be called "national wealth rebates" because they are some sort of reparations from environmental harms that mining and other activities cause to ensure that villages from whose grounds these riches are extracted should share from the benefits.

"Why did the LGU share decreased from the so called national wealth or mining and logging fees from the measly P739 million last year to the more measly P607 million this year?" the senator asked.

He said that it would impact CARAGA as its share of national wealth plowbacks reached P207 million last year, easily the bulk of the funds.

"Is the government resorting to fiscal alchemy to short-change our LGUs especially in CARAGA?" Escudero said.

He also bared that the national wealth share forms part of P250 billion allocation to local government budget in the 2009 budget.