BLGF Executive Director Niño Raymond B. Alvina, on behalf of the Department of Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez, witnessed the ceremonial signing of the Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) No. 2019-01 on the Guidelines for the Review, Adjustment, Setting and/or Adoption of Reasonable Regulatory Fees and Charges of Local Government Units, together with the Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo M. Año, on 20 May 2019, at Camp Crame, Quezon City.

The JMC aims to guide local government units in ensuring uniform procedure in setting reasonable fees and charges as provided for by the provisions of Republic Act (RA) No. 7160, otherwise known as the Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991. It also sets a balance between recovering the cost of services and the ease of doing business in compliance with RA No. 11032, otherwise known as the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery (EODB EGSD) Act of 2018.

Executive Director Alvina noted in his message “This ceremonial signing manifests the strong ties between the two (2) Departments in building bridges to improve the local and fiscal governance. In the last two (2) years of crafting the JMC, we believe that our hardwork was built on the principles of transparency and accountability in promoting efficient local government units. Setting of fees and charges was predominantly upon the sound judgement of the Sanggunian concerned, but with the Circular, LGUs are given a framework to assist them in designing and setting their fees and charges.”