COWD services sacrificed as BIR-10 insists on collecting supposed tax debts

July 8, 2008

cagayan de oro water district long line

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

A number of services offered by the Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD) are now being sacrificed as the regional office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR-10) insists on collecting the water firm’s supposed P341 million tax debt.

Among the COWD services that are now put to a stop are the water bill payments to all of its 22 authorized banks and COWD’s capacity to issue checks for all its major and minor payables to other entities of whom they owe money from.

COWD information officer Hans Bonotan said these are just two of the effects brought by the warrant of distraint/levy and garnishment of bank deposits which were served against them by BIR-10.

“So karon, halos tanan kinamot nalang gyud (so for now, almost everything is done through manual procedure),” he told Gold Star Daily.

He added that there are online services still being used by COWD but are only limited.

Bonotan said they have cut-off their online transactions with the 22 banks that accept payments for water bills in Carmen, Lapasan, Cogon, Macabalan, Divisoria, Velez and Opol areas.

He said they have instead increased their number of tellers to 13 all serving at the COWD main office at Corrales Street.

“But despite this, we are expecting this to severely affect our collections of water bill payments,” he said adding that water consumers would have to really make their payments at their main office and would have to contend with the additional fare and possible inconvenience among others.

COWD records revealed that they have around 25 to 30 percent customers who pay their water bills over authorized banks.

These banks include: Land Bank of the Philippines both at the Carmen, Macabalan and Velez branches; Secured Savings and Loans, Inc. both at the Carmen and Cogon branches; Bank of Commerce-Lapasan and Velez branches, Equitable PCIB-Lapasan, Philippine Countryside Bank-Agora, Philippine National Bank-Limketkai; Banco Filipino-Cogon; Export Bank-Cogon; Security Bank-Cogon; and UCPB both at Cogon and Opol branches.

Also, Development Bank of the Philippines-Corrales; Manila Bank-Divisoria; MayBank-Divisoria; Postal Bank; Queen Bank; International Exchange Bank; and KEPPEL Bank-Velez.

Meanwhile, Bonotan said they have also put a halt to paying in bank checks those payables that are not from big suppliers.

He said those that can be paid in cash must now come to their main office and bring their proper identification cards and, if proper, the authorization letters from the person in authority to claim the payment.

“But we will be using a manager’s check for payments to our big suppliers as they are good as cash,” he said.

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Written by admin · Filed Under Cagayan de Oro