With a membership of over 17,000 city and town councilors, the Philippine Councilors’ League is undoubtedly the country’s biggest think tank.
Bicol PCL chairman Jesciel Richard Salceda said Wednesday that since their members are organic to, and strategically positioned nationwide, PCL can be a potent force in helping steer local government units, in partnership with the national government in addressing economic issues, poverty and other social ills towards meaningful countryside development.
PCL members, Salceda said, are capable to be “modernizing agents of the society in pushing for—among others—constitutional change, and in fortifying the role of local governments and their legislative bodies in pursuing local economic development.”
A three-term councilor of Polangui town in Albay and representative of their local league to the Albay Provincial Board, Salceda is running for the PCL national chairmanship in their league’s upcoming 11th National Congress on February 26 to 28 at SMX MOA in Pasay City.
He is a graduate of Yale University and nephew of Albay Second District Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, ways and means committee chairman.
If elected as PCL national chair, Jesciel Salceda said his agenda include pushing Charter change, term extension for local officials from governor to barangay captains from the present three years to five years, with the right to seek two successive reelections.
The council would bat for a similar extension for congressmen, and the enactment into law of the Supreme Court’s 2018 Mandanas Ruling the established the LGU’s 'just share' in the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) fund.
He said the ‘just’ IRA shares will enable LGUs to pursue and finish broader and more significant programs in their areas, ensure that they will have long lasting positive effects on their constituencies, especially if their terms are extended beyond the present three-year limit.
The three-year term of local officials, he added, limits their efforts and therefore the potential to serve their constituents to the best of their ability, due to the disruption of their programs’ momentum brought about by elections every three years.
He pointed out that most well-meaning LGU officials are forced to plan, implement and finish their three-year agenda to have something to present to the voters when they seek another term.
The Mandanas Ruling, he said, expanded that IRA base which will increase to P354 billion in 2022, P382 billion in 2023, P420 billion in 2024, and P466 billion in 2025.
It resolved the issue of whether LGU shares should come from national internal revenue tax only collected within LGU jurisdiction only, implemented since the inception of the Local Government Code (LGC) in 1991, or on all national taxes, which was favored by the SC.
Salceda said the High Tribunal ruled that LGUs should receive the stipulated 40-percent share from all national tax revenues as contemplated under the Local Government Code.
As PCL national chair, he said he will also work out measures for PCL regional chapters to have “representation in their respective Regional Development Council and actively participate in pursuing growth and development of their areas.”
“It is high time indeed that the league’s strength and role in nation-building, which has remained unexplored and unachieved be fully used to attain the country’s desired economic change,” the young Salceda stressed.
He said he will also pursue measures for LGUs to proactively fight against climate change and disaster
risks through Local Disaster Risk Reduction-Climate Change Adaptation programs and promote local economic development.
The PCL, he added, should also become financially strong and stable, with fund allocations for its key programs in the General Appropriations Act and the annual budget of the provincial, city, and municipal governments.
The programs, he added, will also facilitate the participation of PCL members in activities that will help further strengthen their capabilities, as well as joint undertakings with LGUs and the national government.
“We should build the PCL as fiscally sustainable and transparent institution that would be an instrument of communities in prompting positive changes in the lives of ordinary people and as a reliable partner of government,” said Salceda.
