BONTOC, Mountain Province – Hedcor paid the province the total amount of Nineteen Million Two Hundred Fifty One Thousand Seventy Three & 88/100 pesos (P 19,251,073.88) in real property taxes (RPT) on its facilities located at Sabangan and Bauko municipalities for the current calendar year.
The amount represents the 1 percent basic tax and another 1 percent for Special Education Fund (SEF).
The 1 percent basic tax is shared by the three local governments. Thirty-five percent accrues to the general fund of the provincial government, forty percent to the municipal governments and twenty-five percent to the barangays where the properties are located.
The SEF, on the other hand, is equally shared and accrues to local school board fund of the provincial government and municipal governments concerned.
Apart from the said amount, Hedcor had been directly paying the host communities’ generation shares from the national wealth.
The provincial government received a total amount of P598,090.75 shares since the start of the hydropower operation in 2015 up to July 2016.
The national wealth currently stands at one-centavo per kilowatt-hour of the electricity sales which applies to generation facilities located in all barangays, municipalities, cities, provinces and regions based on Dept of Energy Regulation 1-94.
It was to be noted that the previous local officials, prior to the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement or MOA last July 8, 2011 giving consent to the construction of a 14 MW run-of-river hydropower plant in Sabangan, Mt. Province assured that the share of the LGUs from the one centavo per kilowatt hour to be generated by the project shall be directly remitted to the local governments concerned.
While the Local Government Code provides for the automatic release of the share of LGUs, experience has shown that LGUs still have to lobby for their share in the national resource use as in the case of Ifugao on the use of waters from the Magat River for hydropower and Benguet on its mining shares.
As per record, Hedcor is being cited as the highest taxpayer in the province and the communities where they develop their plants. Aside from remitting taxes, rentals, fees and charges, Hedcor also benefits the community through their corporate social responsibility activities focused on education, infrastructure, environment, and livelihood. The locals are also prioritized during the construction phase until it becomes operational providing a significant number of job opportunities, even if temporary.
By Alfredo F. Macalling