Lopez-led economic zone First Philippine Industrial Park (FPIP) and 17 of its locators have been recognized by the local government of Tanauan City, Batangas province, for being the city’s largest taxpayers last year.
Seven of these companies contributed more than P1 billion in business and real property taxes to the Tanauan City government in 2024. This amount is roughly one-fourth of the city’s P4.3-billion budget for 2024.
“We are proud to be a partner of Tanauan, not just in terms of the substantial tax contribution but also because of the jobs that we create for the local community,” said Ricky Carandang, FPIP vice president. “When FPIP prospers, so does the city.”
FPIP and nine locators also swept all the awards in the top 10 real property taxpayer category, while eight made it to the list of Tanauan City’s 10 biggest sources of business tax.
“I would like to believe that the richest local government unit in Batangas now is Tanauan City because our partners from the business sector are paying their taxes,” Tanauan City Mayor Nelson Collantes said during city hall ceremonies on July 14 honoring the top taxpayers. Tanauan City organizes the annual awarding ceremonies to honor and show appreciation to the city’s biggest taxpayers.
Vice Mayor Wilfredo Ablao disclosed during the same ceremonies that the tax contributions helped the city double its budget for education assistance and other programs. Because of the increased tax payments, the number of schoolchildren receiving benefits under the local government’s education assistance program doubled from 27,000 to 54,000, and the number of beneficiaries per family increased from two to four schoolchildren, Ablao said.
Honda Philippines Inc., a motorcycle assembler inside FPIP, paid Tanauan City P275.15 million in business tax, making it the largest source of this type of payment to the local government last year.
Honda Philippines also paid another P49.34 million in real property tax, which was the fifth largest amount of real property tax paid by one taxpayer to Tanauan City last year.
Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp., a tobacco product maker inside FPIP, was recognized as Tanauan City’s largest source of real property tax (P176.48 million) and third-largest source of business tax (P56.17 million) in 2024.
The combined P324.5 million in business and real property taxes from Honda Philippines also made the company the top source of both taxes in Tanauan City in 2024.
Five locators and FPIP itself joined Honda Philippines in completing the list of the top seven sources of these two taxes in Tanauan City.
Rounding out this list in descending order of their tax contributions were Philip Morris Fortune (P232.65 million), Nestle Philippines Inc. (P149.41 million), Philippine Manufacturing Co. Murata Inc. (P77.21 million ), FPIP (P54.53 million), Brother Industries Philippines Inc. (P50.29 million), and Canon Business Machine Philippines Inc. (P40.87 million).
Lopez-controlled First Philippine Holdings Corp., along with partner Sumitomo Corp. of Japan, established FPIP in Batangas as a world-class location for global manufacturers and traders, as well as a platform for creating jobs for Filipinos and tax revenues for the government. Today, the 600-hectare ecozone provides employment to nearly 80,000 Filipinos.
