By Estanislao Albano, Jr.

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – The joint venture which obtained a geothermal service contract (GSC) over a geothermal resource in the towns of Pasil, Lubuagan and Tinglayan, Kalinga might be serious in pursuing the project after all.

This after Guidance Management Corporation (GMC) and its local partner Aragorn Power and Energy Corporation (APEC) started complying with their obligations under their memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the affected sub-tribes to provide scholarships for college students coming from these sub-tribes.

National Commission on Indigenous Peoples provincial director Natividad Sugguiyao informed the media that each of the nine sub-tribes which so far have given their consent to the geothermal project namely Balatoc, Colayo, Guinaang, Dalupa and Ableg/Dangtalan in Pasil, Uma in Lubuagan municipality and Bangad, Tinglayan and Dananao in Tinglayan municipality were granted 15 scholarships each.

By Estanislao Albano, Jr.

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – For several years now, the Commission on Audit (COA) and the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) have been consistently noting the city government’s  poor collection of local revenues  including  provincially imposed taxes in which the city has interest  in their audit observation memos (AOMs).

The new city administration wants the observation excluded in future COA and BLGF AOMs.

Through Executive Order No. 2010-12, newly elected mayor Ferdinand Tubban created the Revenue Generation Task Force and mandated it to fully implement the Municipal Revenue Code of 2001 and applicable provisions of the Provincial Revenue Code and to coordinate with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for the enforcement of the National Internal Revenue Code in the locality.

Chaired by city treasurer Constante Doctor, the task force counts among its members the provincial heads of the BIR and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the provincial treasurer and  the provincial assessor.