Photo from: Senate of the Philippines

Pasay City – The Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) supports the sponsorship of Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito of the Senate Bill No. 2165, otherwise known as “An Act Institutionalizing the Automatic Income Reclassification of Provinces, Cities, and Municipalities”, during the privilege speech on 10 May 2023 at the Senate of the Philippines in Pasay City.

“The proposed measure aims to institutionalize the automatic reclassification of the local government units (LGUs) and seeks to grant authority to the Secretary of Finance to regularly reclassify the LGUs every three (3) years and review or revise the income ranges provided in the substitute bill”, the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Local Government said.

In the said bill, provinces, cities and municipalities shall be classified into six (6) income classes based on respective financial capability and fiscal position, which shall be computed using the updated annual regular income of the LGUs. .

The current LGUs’ income classification is based on outdated revenue figures, with 141 requests from various LGUs submitted to the Department of Finance (DOF) for income reclassification.