SEC. 21. General powers and duties of the Board.—Except as otherwise provided by law, and subject to the conditions and limitations thereof, the Municipal Board shall have the following legislative powers:
To provide for the levy and collection of taxes for general and special purposes in accordance with law.
To fix the tariff of fees and charges for all services rendered by the city or any of its departments, branches or officers.
To provide for the erection and maintenance or lease of the necessary buildings for the use of the city.
To provide for the establishment and maintenance of an efficient police force for the maintenance of law and order in the city, and make all necessary police ordinances, with a view to the confinement and reformation of vagrants, disorderly persons, mendicants, and prostitutes, and persons convicted of violating any of the ordinances of the city.
To establish fire limits, determine the kinds of buildings or structures that may he erected within said limits, regulate the manner of construction and repairing the same, and fix the fees for permits for the construction, repair, or demolition of buildings and structures.
To establish and maintain engine houses, fire engines, hose carts, hooks and ladders, and other equipment for the prevention and extinguishment of fires, and to regulate the management and use of the same, and provide the necessary personnel.
To regulate the use of lights in stables and wagon sheds, shops, and other public buildings and places, and to regulate and restrict the issuance of permits for the building of bonfires and the use of firecrackers, fireworks, torpedoes, candles, skyrockets, and other pyrotechnic displays, and to fix the fees for such permits.
To make regulations to protect the public from conflagrations and to prevent and mitigate the effects of famine, floods, storms, and other public calamities, and to provide relief for persons suffering from the same.
To regulate and fix the amount of the license fees for the following: hawkers, peddlers, hucksters, not including hucksters or peddlers who sell only native vegetables, fruits or foods, personally carried by the hucksters or peddlers; auctioneers, plumbers, barbers, collecting agencies, mercantile agencies, shipping and intelligence offices, private detective agencies, private detectives, advertising agencies, massagists, manicurists, chiropodists, beauty parlors, tattooers, jugglers, acrobats, clubs, dealers in large cattle, laundries, cleaning and dyeing establishments, shooting galleries, sloth machines, merry-go-rounds and other similar riding apparatus, dealers in second-hand merchandise, brewers, distillers, rectifiers, money changers and brokers, public ferries, and the keeping, preparation, and sale of meat, poultry, fish, game, butter, cheese, lard, vegetables, bread and other provisions.
To tax, fix the license fee for, and regulate hotels, restaurants, refreshment parlors, cafes, lodging houses, boarding houses, livery garages, public warehouses, pawnshops, theaters, cinematographs; and also to fix the location of livery garages, boarding stables, embalmers, public billiard tables, pools, bowling-alleys, dance halls, public dance halls, cabarets, circus and other similar parades, public vehicles, race tracks, horse races, junk dealers, theatrical performances, public exhibitions, circuses, and all other performances and places of amusement, match factories, blacksmith shops, foundries, boilers, lumber yards, ship yards, the storage and sale of gunpowder, tar, pitch, resin, coal, oil, gasoline, benaine, turpentine, abaca, cotton, nitroglycerine, petroleum or any of the products thereof, and of all other highly combustible or explosive materials, and other establishments likely to endanger public safety or give rise to conflagrations or explosions, and, subject to the provisions of ordinances issued by the Philippine Health Service in accordance with law, tanneries, tallow chandleries, bone factories, and soap factories.
To tax and fix the license fee for tailor shops; millineries ; embroidery shops; sail and awning makers' establishments, or both; rope; paper; slippers or sandals, or both; harness, valises or traveling bags, or any of them; textile; shell lamps or lamp shades, or both; mortuary statues or tables, or both; bags; rattan goods; wire or bronze beds, or both; men's shirts; hats; printers, bookbinders, or both; glasses or optical articles, or both; dyes; bottles or glass articles, or both; salted or dried fish, or both; fertilizers; nails and buttons.
No tax shall he levied on any of the businesses or on any of the manufacturers referred to in this subsection exceeding two hundred pesos per annum. Manufacturers of the aforesaid articles shall not be subject to the payment of any municipal tax nor of any license fee as retail dealers of articles manufactured by them, nor shall any manufacture carried on exclusively by the members of a family at their own home be subject to payment of tax or license fee.
To tax and fix license fees for (a) dealers in new motor cars, their accessories, or both; and (b) retail dealers in new (unused) merchandise not yet subject to payment of any municipal tax.
For purposes of taxation, these retail dealers shall be divided into the following classes: (1) retail dealers in general merchandise; and (2) retail dealers engaged exclusively in selling (a) textiles, including knitted ware; (b) hardware, including glass articles, kitchen utensils, electric goods and construction material; (o) provisions, including toilet articles, except perfumery; (d) drugs, including medicines and perfumes; (e) books, including stationery, paper and office supplies; (f) jewelry; (g) slippers; (h) arms, ammunition and sporting goods: Provided, however, That the total amount of taxes to be paid by any dealer or manufacturer, or any of those-mentioned in this subsection, whether they deal in one or all the goods mentioned herein, shall not exceed five hundred pesos per annum.
To tax motor and other vehicles, notwithstanding provisions to the contrary contained in Act Numbered Thirty-nine hundred and ninety-two, and draft animals not paying any national tax: Provided, however, That all automobiles and trucks belonging to the National Government or to any provincial or municipal government, and also automobiles or trucks not regularly kept in the City of Iloilo shall be exempt from such tax.
To regulate the method of using steam engines and boilers, other than marine or belonging to the Federal or National Government; to provide for the inspection thereof, and a reasonable fee for such inspection, and to regulate and fix the fees for the licenses of the engineers engaged in operating the same.
To provide for the prohibition and suppression of riots, affrays, disturbances and disorderly assemblies; houses of ill fame and other disorderly houses; gaming houses, gambling, and all fraudulent devices for the purpose of obtaining money or property; prostitution, vagrancy, intoxication, fighting, quarrelling, and all disorderly conduct; the printing, circulation, exhibition or sale of obscene pictures, books, or publications, and for the maintenance and preservation of peace and good morals.
To prohibit, or regulate and fix the license fees for, the keeping of dogs, and to authorize their impounding and destruction when running at large contrary to ordinances, and to tax and regulate the keeping or training of fighting cocks.
To establish and maintain municipal pounds; to regulate, restrain and prohibit the running at large of domestic animals, and provide for the distraining, impounding, and sale of the same for the penalty incurred, and the costs of the proceedings; and to impose penalties upon the owners of said animals for the violation of any ordinance in relation thereto.
To prohibit and provide for the punishment of cruelty to animals.
To regulate the inspection, weighing, and measuring of brick, coal, lumber, and other articles of merchandise.
To provide for the laying out, construction, and improvement, and to regulate the use of streets, avenues, alleys, sidewalks, wharves, piers, parks, cemeteries, and other public places; to provide for the lighting, cleaning, and sprinkling of streets and public places; to regulate, fix license fees for, or prohibit the use of the same for processions, signs, signposts, awnings, awning posts, the carrying or displaying of banners, placards advertisements, w hand bills, or the flying of signs, flags, or banners, whether along, across, over or from buildings, along the same; to prohibit the placing, throwing, depositing, or leaving of obstacles of any kind, offal, garbage, refuse, or other offensive matter or matter liable to cause damage, in the streets and other public places, and to provide for the collection and disposition thereof; to provide for the inspection of, fix the license fees for, and regulate the openings in the same for the laying of gas, water, sewer, and other pipes, the building and repair of tunnels, sewers, and drains, and all structures in and under the same, and the erecting of poles and the stringing of wires therein; to regulate cross-walks, curbs, and gutters therein; to name unnamed streets and provide for and regulate the numbering of houses and lots fronting thereon or in the interior of the blocks; to regulate traffic and sales upon the streets and other public places; to provide for the abatement of nuisances in the same and punish the authors or owners thereof; to provide for the construction and maintenance, and regulate the use of bridges, viaducts and culverts; to prohibit and regulate ball playing, kite flying, hoop rolling and other amusements which may annoy persons using the streets and public places, or frighten horses or other animals; to regulate the speed of horses and other animals, motor and other vehicles, cars, and locomotives within the limits of the city; to regulate the locating, constructing, and laying of the tracks of horse, electric, and other forms of railroad in the streets or other public places of the city authorized by law; to provide for and change the location, grade, and crossings of railroads, and to compel any such railroad to raise or lower its tracks to conform to such provisions or changes; and to require railroad companies to fence their property, or any part thereof, to provide suitable protection against injury to persons or property, and to construct and repair ditches, drains, sewers and culverts along or under their tracks so that the natural drainage of the streets and adjacent property shall not be obstructed.
To provide for the establishment and maintenance and regulate the use of public drains, sewers, latrines and cesspools.
Subject to the provisions of ordinances issued by the Philippine Health Service in accordance with law to provide for the establishment and maintenance and fix the fees for the use of, and regulate public stables, laundries and baths, and public markets and slaughterhouses, and prohibit the establishment or operation within the city limits of public markets and slaughterhouses by any person, entity, association or corporation other than the city.
To regulate, inspect, and provide measures preventing any discrimination or the exclusion of any race or races in or from any institution, establishment, or service open to the public within the city limits or in the sale and supply of gas or electricity, or in the telephone and street-railway service; to fix and regulate charges therefor where the same have not been fixed by laws of the National Assembly; to regulate and provide for the inspection of all gas, electric, telephone, and street-railway conduits, mains, meters, and other apparatus, and provide for the condemnation, substitution or removal of the same when defective or dangerous.
To declare, prevent, and provide for the abatement of nuisances; to regulate the ringing of bells and the making of loud or unusual noises; to provide that owners, agents, or tenants of buildings or premises keep and maintain the same in sanitary condition, and that in case of failure to do so, after sixty days from the date of serving of a written notice, the cost thereof be assessed to the owner to the extent of not to exceed sixty per centum of the assessed value, which cost shall constitute a lien against the property; and to regulate or prohibit or fix the license fee for the use of property on or near public ways, grounds or places, or elsewhere within the city, for a display of electric signs or the erection or maintenance of billboards or structures of whatever material, erected, maintained, or used for the display of posters, signs, or other pictorial or reading matter, except signs displayed at the place or places where the profession or business advertised thereby is in whole or part conducted.
To provide for the enforcement of the regulations of the Philippine Health Service, and by ordinance to prescribe penalties for violations of such regulations.
To extend its ordinances over all waters within the city, over the Bay of Iloilo three miles beyond the city limits, and over any boat or other floating structures thereon.
(aa) To enact all ordinances it may deem necessary and proper for the sanitation and safety, the furtherance of the prosperity and the promotion of the morality, peace, good order, comfort, convenience, and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, and such others as may be necessary to carry into effect and discharge the powers and duties conferred by this charter; and to fix penalties for the violation of ordinances, which shall not exceed a fine of two hundred pesos or six months' imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment, for each offense.
(bb) To regulate the sale, trading in, or disposal of alcoholic or malt beverages, wines, mixed or fermented liquors offered for retail sale, and to fix license fees therefor.
(cc) To regulate any business or occupation and to require license from persons engaged in the same or who exercise privileges in the city, by requiring them to secure a permit for a license at the rate fixed by the Municipal Board, and to prescribe the conditions under which said permits for licenses may be revoked.