Quezon City is top revenue generator among cities in 2019

MANILA, Philippines — Quezon City raised the highest locally sourced revenues (LSRs) among all cities in the Philippines during the fiscal year 2019.

According to Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) of the Department of Finance (DOF), the biggest city in Metro Manila collected nominal LSRs of P16.95 billion in 2019.

Makati City ranked second with LSR collections of P12.51 billion, followed by Manila City which generated P9.87 billion, data showed.

Local government units derive their revenues from local and external sources.

Local sources include tax revenues from the real property tax and the business tax, and non-tax revenues from fees and charges, receipts from government business operations and proceeds from sale of assets.

On the other hand, external sources include the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) from the national government and other shares from special laws, grants, aids and borrowings.

As of third quarter of fiscal year 2020, LGUs collected P205.71 billion in own-source revenues, already exceeding the watered-down collection goal of P193.04 billion for the entire year. The BLGF earlier set a P307.08 billion LSR target for 2020, but this was lowered due to effects of the pandemic on revenue generation capacity of LGUs. 

For 2021, the BLGF set the collection goal at P223.90 billion for all LGUs.