Parañaque City Mayor Florencio Bernabe Jr. Thursday accused political rivals of spreading false rumors that he plans to sneak through an increase in realty tax rates.

Bernabe said the rumors were spread by rivals to smear his administration ahead of the local elections.

The mayor said his political rivals know that a proposed City Council ordinance seeking the property tax increase was the subject of a series of public hearings late last year.

The outcome of those hearings, attended by a cross section of the city’s population including the business sector, showed an almost unanimous opposition to the tax increase.

“This is the reason the public hearings were discontinued to allow the proponents of the ordinance additional time to more exhaustively study it even as we face the reality that we are duty-bound to follow the mandate of the National Internal Revenue Code,” Bernabe said.

Bernabe said proponents of the realty tax increase shelved the proposal in the wake of public sentiment against it during public hearings.

The mayor said he understood why rivals are resuscitating the draft ordinance, saying the political season in the city is obviously in full swing.

“By reviving the issue now, it only shows their total lack of political issues they can rake against me, which raises the suspicion that they are merely out to discredit me and my administration by pandering to those who oppose the proposal,” Bernabe said.

Bernabe pointed out that raising real property taxes in Paranaque is inevitable whether it will happen during his incumbency or in his successor’s term.

He explained that the last time the local government reviewed the city’s real property tax structure since was in l992.

“It is high time we revised our property valuations. Our current assessment schedules are now outmoded and have created disparity between the fair value and selling price of real properties in Paranaque. The new ordinance corrects this and reflects their prevailing market value,” Bernabe said.

He cited the unrealistic property valuations as one of the reasons why Paranaque is lagging behind its neighbors like Las Pinas, Muntinlupa, Taguig and Pasay.