Baguio Houses with More Trees Should Pay Less Taxes

Instead of the members of the city council behaving as ‘urban developers,’ insisting on erecting parking buildings on Burnham, satellite markets on the sidewalks, and uglifying Baguio, they should stop, think/research, listen/debate, LEGISLATE. That’s what they were elected for. And one subject they can really look into, as per my humble suggestion, is Baguio real estate taxes.

Tax structures in this city should follow this basic principle: If one is enhancing the city or abusing it less, one should pay less taxes. Not the stupid policy of ‘if you are earning more, you should be in a higher tax bracket.’ Okay, before you start protesting, let me explain via concrete examples:

1. If there are more trees on your property, you should be allowed a tax deduction per tree. This way, you are helping the Baguio air, and you are not ‘uglifying’ the place with a pure concrete structure. You are serving the city by adding breathing space for all.

What will happen is that property owners might be encouraged to plant more trees instead of cutting them down to make room for more buildings. The laws prohibiting the cutting down of trees are circumvented by pithy attempts at planting pine tree seedlings in exchange. After planting, there’s no follow up, nor are there sanctions if these substitute trees do not prosper.

2. The more people who live, work or study permanently in your house or building, the more you should pay because they are depleting the city’s resources all year-round. We should be taxed by occupancy not building capacity. For example, dormitories that have 16 students in one room 10 months out of one year should pay more than a hotel that has 16 rooms with 2 occupants for an average of 3 full months out of one year.

Of course building capacity comes into play for safety and structural concerns, like a school with 10,000 students in a 7-storey building complex within just a few thousand square meters lot area.

3. The more public restrooms you offer, like restaurants and hotels, the less taxes you should pay. Right now, the more restrooms you have the higher your business taxes get. That’s so wrong! The more public restrooms one offers, the better. So that the city council will not think up of other excuses to build more of those stand-alone, low-class, ugly, restroom concessions all over our parks that say ‘P5.00 ihi P10.00 dumi‘ for heaven’s sake!

By the way, I feel those restrooms should be demolished. The taxi drivers still stop by light posts (just like stray dogs) and do their ‘thing’ all over the city anyway. There should be no more fines (that are not imposed anyway). These acts should be criminalized, and let’s see if anyone will continue ‘trashing’ Baguio! Maybe everyone with camera phones should just expose these people. Hey, come to think of it, Baguio Insider could even have a photo album just for them.

They should be demolished because low-class tourists do not pay for accommodations and sleep in their cars and are allowed BY THE CITY to abuse Baguio.

4. The bigger the area for your free parking slots, the less you pay. This will encourage businesses to provide for parking and not use the streets for their customers’ vehicles. Houses with more garage space should get tax breaks while houses without garages should be penalized. Use the carrot and stick approach. No middle ground here.

And folks who park their cars overnight on the city streets should find their cars towed by morning time. This will entail an investment of only one tow truck on the part of the city. Isn’t it a law in the Philippines that one cannot register a car without having a garage? If that is true, then all those who park their cars on the road at City Camp or Engineer’s Hill should not be allowed cars. Also, no one should be allowed to wash their cars on the city streets. So that we do not beget potholes, you see. Because concrete and asphalt are porous, duh. We should stop on-the-road car wash services if just to deprive corrupt government officials of their chance for kickbacks.

5. Set a building to property ratio. If a house is built on only 25% of the lot, and 75% is garden, then the property owner should be rewarded for this. Our tax structures merely compute taxes for property and taxes for building improvements. But if the owner can show that only a small portion of his lot is built on, then he can be given tax breaks, too.

Baguio used to be so picturesque with so many gardens with different flowers like petunias, or gardenias (aka rosal), poinsettias. All the houses had curb appeal. Mos Cating’s house on Quezon Hill is a fine example. And all those old houses on First Road, amid the squalor of all the ‘homesteaders’ (aka squatters) on the hill and cliff sides. Now it seems some Chinaman has built a huge (ware) house on Leonard Wood Road with the tallest wall that can fit delivery trucks (those many wheelers) entering his property. No trees seen on his property, just cement. And his structure is such a sorry sight for one of the best avenues in the city.

When, more than a decade ago, Atty. Damaso Bangaoet conceptualized the Panagbenga with the other Baguio Flower Festival folk, they instituted a barangay garden competition that meant year-round maintenance for mini gardens all around the city. That was a great move by the private sector.

Of course Domogan and Vergara wanted the Panagbenga only for the money part — sponsorships. When they took over, they concentrated more on allowing Globe and Smart Telecoms to paint their logos on the pedestrian overpasses, or making the little children perform under heavy rain, than on the pocket gardens. Just to show you where their interests lay.

The point here is, there are good people and good ideas floating around in Baguio that do not see concretization because there’s no money in it for the powers that be. But if they stop treating politics as business, they can actually be well-loved by the people and maybe even get to heaven faster. And their names, the only thing they can bring with them when they go, will be unsullied. That’s all that’s important. Instead of causing permanent damage to the city for temporary personal gain.

I believe the local government now should dream up of POLICIES that will enhance Baguio not plan nightmares for the city such as Danny Farinas’ satellite markets, or Peter Rey Bautista’s metal parking building. In fact, if possible, they should remove Vergara’s concrete pine tree and tear down Domogan’s and Vergara’s BGH flyover instead of raising a few hundred million more to complete it.

Finally, folks should stop pretending that there is actual democracy working in Baguio. Unpopular projects are railroaded by those who have vested interests (like that lop-sided Jadewell parking contract when Domogan was mayor). Consultations are never really true, just minimal procedural compliance. If this is the case, then may I ask that policies that may be unpopular with the masses but good for Baguio in the long run be railroaded in the same manner?

If we cater ONLY to the poor, then Baguio WILL be poor. But if we set the infrastructure for prosperity, via a popular tourist destination, everyone will prosper. As far as ‘university town’ goes, only the Bautistas, Salvosas, Concepcions and the SLU priests get rich. Everyone elase stays poor. Better for them, bad for Baguio due to the overcrowding in the city center. Tourism creates jobs, the universities here create unemployed masses because Baguio does not and cannot create enough jobs for the graduates. And yet they never leave the city to go back where they came from.

Can the politicians love Baguio more and themselves less? Is that too much to ask?

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