Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte (Facebook)

Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte says the newly-signed Real Property Valuation and Assessment Reform Act (RPVARA) will generate higher revenue for local government units (LGUs) and accelerate the Marcos administration’s infrastructure development program.

In a statement on Friday, June 14, Villafuerte said Republic Act (RA) No. 12001 will help upgrade the tax collection efficiency in the country while hauling up investments from the private sector.

“The weak collection efficiency of LGUs hurts their collective capability to raise bigger revenues from real properties, hence hampering their ability to bankroll sufficiently the necessary public services for the good of their respective constituents,” he said.

President Marcos signed the new law on Thursday in a bid to upgrade the country’s “outdated” valuation system.

As a co-author of this law, Villafuerte said it also aims to reorganize the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) into the sole agency in charge of streamlining and boosting real property valuation in the country.

He noted that this will come to fruition with the establishment of a single Schedule of Market Values (SMVs) for all LGUs.

This will enable them to “correct the current absence of a unified national standard that has only bred red tape, ROW (right-of-way) conflicts and lengthy court disputes—and barred the government from harnessing the full potentials of the land sector as a rich asset for national growth and development,” the congressman explained.

The BGLF, an attached agency of the Department of Finance (DOF), is currently in charge of empowering the LGUs to attain fiscal sustainability through the formulation and implementation of sound policies.

Meanwhile, the Marcos administration’s infrastructure development program, Build Better More (BBM), will also be expedited with the use of new SMVs on real property.

Villafuerte said new SMVs will address ROW issues that have delayed the government's acquisition of certain private lands intended for public infrastructure projects.

Ultimately, LGUs that neither have the database nor the capacity to update the property market values in their respective localities will benefit the most from this new legislation, he said.

“Right now…LGUs are the ones doing their respective SMVs, which lead to conflicting or outdated values that only erode the real property tax base of certain local governments,” the Bicolano emphasized.