People and Government

The People

The Philippines is the third largest English-speaking nation in the world. Under American rule, Filipinos have transformed from a religion-centered into an education-focused culture. For instance, recent research by the Kanagawa University of Japan has shown that the Filipino's rate of economic sacrifice for buying books is greater than many developed countries. At 0.428%, the country's book spending ratio is greater than that of the U.S.

The City is populated by a motley blend of people from the provinces. Abounding opportunities brought about by commercial and industrial firms have centrifuged migration, causing Caloocan's growth rate to spike-up. Caloocan has a gamut of highly-educated, skilled, and trainable human resource. They have a wide range of expertise from the professional to the technical fields such as medicine to metal fabrication, finance to electronics, and management to industrial labor. The city has a pool of highly-trained and experienced returning overseas contract workers from countries in all parts of the world such as in Asia to Australia, the Middle East to Africa, Europe to the North, Central and South America.

The Philippine government is patterned after the American model. A three-year-term elected mayor heads Caloocan City. The City's legislative body, the Sangguniang Panglungsod, consists of 12 elected councilors and two representative councilors from the baranggay and youth sectors. Caloocan is made up of 188 baranggays -- the smallest political units in the Philippines.

ROLES & POWERS OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT

The Local Government Code of 1991 allows Caloocan to :

• grant tax exemptions, incentives and relief to attract investments;
• enter into partnership with the private sector for long, medium or short term efforts at  development;
• commercialize or privatize the delivery of certain basic services;
• borrow money from private sources to finance capital investment projects and stabilize  public finance;
• secure domestic and foreign grants; and
• enter into a Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) contract or any of its variants.

FISCAL MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION

The City's total income has jumped up by 100% (US$29.7M) in 1994. Tax revenues, like real property and business taxes, have comprised 40.2% of the total income, 9.9% from non-tax revenues, and 49.9% from the national allotment. Increased in business activities brought about by the economic upswing have jump-started business taxes to US$6M -- a 30% increase from fiscal year 1992. Under Mayor Malonzo's initiative, automation of the City's tax administration along with business permits and licensing has been undertaken to improved the efficiency of tax collection and elimination of red tape.