Wednesday, May 14, 2008 No pact with Mankayan on boundary tiff: Buguias By Jane Cadalig
MUNICIPAL officials of Buguias on Tuesday denied claims of an adjacent town regarding the supposed agreed boundary, and clarified it concerns the payment of business and real property taxes on the disputed land.
The town said it never had an agreement with Mankayan in declaring the boundary between the two municipalities will be the center of Halsema Highway.
"The (claim) of Mankayan that the political boundary is the center of the road is purely baseless and hearsay. A surveyor could never attest a boundary is a road," municipal officials said in a resolution.
Officials explained an earlier agreement entered between previous officials of the two local governments merely involved properties found at the western side of Halsema and not the business establishments operating there.
Earlier, the Mankayan Municipal Council asked Buguias to stop collecting taxes from businesses located at the western portion of the National Highway, saying these fall within the municipality's jurisdiction, based on the previous agreement.
But Buguias officials said this was not part of the agreement. The two municipalities have an ongoing boundary conflict.
What was mutually agreed, the Buguias Municipal Council said, was for real property owners in Buguias who declared their lots in Mankayan, should be the paying their realty taxes to the latter town.
Some lot owners in Buguias declared their properties in Mankayan in order to obtain certificates of title, which are restricted in Buguias, being a watershed area.
Business owners located at the western side of Halsema, the Buguias council stressed, should pay their taxes to the municipality, which provides them peace and order, education and health services.
