Bank aids South Cotabato with online tax collection system

By Danilo E. Doguiles

Tuesday 26th of June 2012

KORONADAL CITY, June 26 (PIA) -- Collection of the real tax property tax (RPT) in South Cotabato is expected to improve with the full operation of an online system that the Veterans Bank has recently developed for the local government.

Gov. Arthur Y. Pingoy Jr. and Veterans Bank-Koronadal Branch Manager Tranquilino Morante Jr. on Thursday signed an amended memorandum of agreement for the province-wide installation of an online RPT collection system that the bank has developed and offered free of charge.

Veterans Bank’s Executive Vice President Jesus Vicente Garcia was also present at the MOA signing.

The computer-based system, Morante disclosed, has already been installed in the municipalities of Banga, Norala, Polomolok, Sto. Niño, Tupi, Tampakan, Tantangan, T’boli and Tampakan.

“Because of hardware-related problem, the RPT system has not yet been installed in the local government unit of Lake Sebu,” Morante said.

“The are also some minor requirements from the provincial government that we need to comply with but other than that, we are ready for the operation of the computer-based collection system.”

He said the RPT system should be in full operation "very soon."

The system links the ten municipalities in the province and allows taxpayers to check online the exact amount of real property tax due them and pay in any of the official collection centers in their municipality or at the provincial capitol.

“Taxpayers need not even go to Veterans Bank to pay their real property tax obligations,” he said.

Although the bank spent “millions of pesos” in hiring service providers for the development of the system compliant to specific requirements of the provincial government, “the services we provided are all for free,” he added.

He explained that the earlier memorandum of agreement, which should have been implemented in April was amended after they realized that the provincial government cannot effectively collect RPTs if the system is not linked with the LGUs.

“The expansion of the system’s coverage was made without required deposits from the municipal LGUs,” he said.

Gov. Pingoy said the assistance from Veterans Bank is an advantage to the provincial government.

“The lifeline of the province of South Cotabato depends on updating of the RPT and its collection,” the governor said.

“This partnership is a big thing for the provincial government,” he added. “With this we will surely improve our tax collection, which should result in enhanced delivery of development services to the communities.”

Aside from the RPT project, the bank has extended other support to the provincial government’s efforts.

“In 2011, the provincial government earned extra P2 million from our deposits because the bank gave us much higher interest from our deposits,” Gov. Pingoy said, adding that this resulted in other banks adjusting their interest rates for the LGU’s deposits.

Morante confirmed that the interest rate they are giving the LGU is at “more than 3 percent” as compared to the 1.75 percent other banks have previously provided to the LGU.

Other services the Veterans Bank has provided the provincial government, according to the bank official, include installation of an offsite ATM at the provincial capitol, provisions of armored cars to ensure safety of money delivered to service banks, ATM payroll for contractual employees, and salary loan of regular and co-terminus employees at interest rate of only 12 percent per annum.

“At present we are working on the transfer of ATM payroll servicing of the provincial LGU’s regular employees from another bank. We are now preparing their ATM cards which also serve as official IDs of the employees,” Morante said.

During the signing of the amended MOA, Morante also turned over to Gov. Pingoy a cheque for P200,000 as support to the 2012 T’nalak Festival celebration in July.

He also clarified several misconceptions regarding the Veterans Bank.

“Veterans Bank is not a government-owned bank, it is a privately-owned business,” he said, “nor are we an exclusive bank for war veterans. We also cater to individual depositors as well as local government units.” (DEDoguiles/PIA 12)