Sagada tourist fees missing; probe pushed

By Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- Environmental fees worth thousands of pesos collected at the tourist information center are “missing” and unaccounted and concerned residents are pressing an investigation and audit.

The practice had reportedly been going on over the years with missing receipts and collections prompting a letter- complaint to the office of the police calling for investigation and to the Sangguniang Bayan calling  for  integrity on keeping public funds secure.

A police blotter bared  a booklet of  receipts has been missing  last year. An environmental fee of P35 is collected by the local government unit from each tourist who enters the tourist town of Sagada.

Reportedly, three staff from the local government collected on December 28, 2014  when  the amount of P8,000 got missing from the collection. This was preceded by a collection of P9,000 reportedly missing Jan. 1 of 2015.

In May 23 this year the amount of P15,000 was automatically fished out from the collections to pay a tourist claiming her cellphone was lost despite non-conduct of investigation.

Town treasurer Linda Donato said the practice is improper though she said collections were duly submitted.

Missing collections were reportedly paid by those tasked to collect the environmental fees during specific days in question before submission to the office of the treasury.

Netizens Lino Makalingay and  Raymond Alipit of Save Sagada Facebook suggested formation of a committee composed of community members and government to check where public funds  are going specifically environmental fees.

Environmental fees were directly receipted by the LGU in 2005 at  P20 per tourist. Collection was earlier done by the Sagada Environmental Guides Association (SEGA) with P10 fee then for quite some time.

Records from the tourism office revealed some 25,000 of tourists registered before 2007 and peaked by 65,000 in 2014 now seen to register nearly 100,000 this year.

Some P2 million  was collected in 2014.

Some 15,000 tourists a year had been coming to Sagada in the later years of 1990s to early years of  2000, tourist guide and former staff  of the tourist info office said.

Tourist guide Mark Galas and former staff of the tourist information center where environmental fees are collected said there never was any occurrence of missing collections until the recent incidents. 

The revised  tourism  code of 2007 provides for  use of  50% of the environmental fees for tourism projects.

Whether budgeted collections are lumped in general fund is a  most asked question by the public especially among tourist guides.

Juniper Dominguez who traces his ancestry from Barangay Taccong suggested  a special audit  be done to  know  where the collections  had been going the previous years.