The municipal council; powers.
Section 47
SEC. 47. The municipal council; powers.—The municipal council shall have power by ordinance or resolution: (a) Appropriations.—To make necessary appropriations -appropriations, for the expenses of government of the municipality, and establish and fix therein the salaries of municipal officers and employees, except as herein provided. (b) Property.—To purchase, receive, hold, sell, lease, convey, and dispose of property, real and personal, for the benefit of the municipality: Provided, That the express authorization of the provincial governor shall be necessary to alienate or constitute any lien upon any real property of the municipality, and, with the prior authorization of the department governor, to close in whole or in part any municipal road, street, alley, park, or square, and to devote the same to any municipal purpose, including those mentioned in Act Numbered Two thousand and twenty-nine, or to convey the same, with or without money consideration, to the department, province, or to the Insular Government for governmental purposes: Provided, however, That no road, street, alley, park, or square, or any part thereof, shall be closed without indemnifying any person prejudiced thereby. (c) Levy, collections, and expenditures of taxes.—To provide for the levy and collection of taxes and other municipal revenues, as provided by law, and apply the same to the payment of municipal expenses in accordance with appropriations. (d) Licenses and license fee.—To issue licenses fixing the amount of the license fee for the following: Hawkers, peddlers, hucksters, not including hucksters or peddlers who sell only native vegetables, fruits, or foods, personally carried by the huckster or peddler, auctioneers, plumbers, barbers, tailor shops, bakeries, manicuring establishments, massage parlors, embalmers, collecting agencies, mercantile agencies, transportation companies and agencies, advertising agents, tattooers, hotels, clubs, restaurants, lodging houses, boarding houses, livery stables, boarding stables, laundries, cleaning and dyeing establishments, establishments for the storage of highly combustible or explosive materials, public warehouses, circus and other similar parades, public vehicles, bicycles, horse races, bowling alleys, pawnbrokers, dealers in second-hand merchandise, junk dealers, billiard tables, theaters, theatrical performances and all other performances and places of amusement, shooting galleries, slot machines not used for gaming, and merry-go-rounds; to license or prohibit dance halls; and the selling, giving away, or disposing in any manner of any intoxicating, spirituous, vinous, or fermented liquors, and determine the amount to be paid for such licenses: Provided, That nothing in this section shall be held to repeal or modify the provisions of Act Numbered Sixteen hundred and thirty-nine. If after due investigation the president shall decide that any person licensed under the provisions of this subsection is abusing his license and privilege to the injury of the public morals or peace or that any place so licensed has been or is conducted in a disorderly or unlawful manner, or is a nuisance, or is permitted to be used as a resort for disorderly characters, criminals, or women of ill repute, he may by order summarily revoke such license, subject to appeal to the provincial governor, whose action on the appeal shall be final. Such revocation shall operate to forfeit to the municipality all sums which may have been paid for said license and to prohibit the issuance to the person whose license is revoked of any other license for a term which may be fixed in said order. (e) Regulations for conducting business.—To make regulations for the conducting of the business of the persons and places named in subsection (d) of this section. To regulate the business and fix the location of blacksmith shops, foundries, steam boilers, steam engines, lumber yards, sawmills, and other establishments likely to endanger the public safety by giving rise to conflagrations or explosions; to regulate the storage and sale of gunpowder, tar, pitch, resin, coal, oil, gasoline, benzine, turpentine, nitroglycerin, petroleum, or any of the products thereof and of all other highly combustible or explosive materials. (f) Public buildings.—To provide for the erection or rental of public buildings necessary for the use of the municipality. (g) Schools.—To establish and maintain primary schools, subject to the limitations of law. (h) Scholarships.—To grant scholarships to municipal teachers and male and female students in the municipality, under such conditions as it may deem convenient to prescribe, subject to the approval of the provincial board and the department governor. (i) Building regulations.—To establish fire limits, and prescribe the kind of buildings and structures that may be erected within said limits, and the manner of constructing and repairing the same. (j) Fire department.—To erect engine house, and provide fire engines, hose carts, hooks and ladders, and other equipment for the prevention and extinguishment of fires, and to provide for the management and use of the same: Provided, That until further provision is made, Act Numbered Seventeen hundred and thirty-three of the Philippine Commission, except as to the number of authorized volunteer firemen, shall apply to all municipalities. (k) Lights, fires, and fireworks.—To regulate the use of and lights in stables, shops, and other buildings and places, and to regulate or restrain the building of bonfires and the use of firecrackers, fireworks, torpedoes, and pyrotechnic displays. (I) Storms and calamities.—To make suitable provisions to insure the public safety from conflagrations, the effects ities' of storms, and other public calamities, and to provide relief for persons suffering from the same. (m) Streets, sidewalks,plazas, parks,water supply,and so forth; special assessment.—To provide for laying out, opening, extending, widening, straightening, closing up, constructing, or regulating, in whole or in part, any public plaza, square, street, sidewalk, trail, park, waterworks, or water mains, or any cemetery, sewer, sewer connection or connections, either on, in, or upon public or private property; to provide for ascertaining whether any, and what amount in value, of damage will be caused, or benefit will accrue to the owner or possessor of any land, premises, or improvements; whether public or private, by reason of any such work and for which such owner or possessor should be compensated, or should pay a compensation, and provide for assessing, levying, and collecting, either generally on the whole assessable property within the municipality, specially on the property benefited, or on all the property within any stated area or district within the bounds of said municipality which it may create and establish for any such purpose, the whole, or any part of the amount of damages and expenses which, as so ascertained, will be incurred in and about any such work or construction as aforesaid within the bounds of said municipality; to provide for the payment of such compensation as may be found to be due to any person or persons entitled thereto; to provide, when the owners or possessors of such lands, premises, or improvements shall not properly and fully pay to such official and at such time or times and manner as it shall fix therefor any amount or amounts which may be found and declared to be due as and for such assessment as aforesaid, for filing in the proper and appropriate registers or records of property declarations of such amounts so found due, which amounts shall, in each and all cases and upon and after such filing, be and become liens upon and against such lands, premises, or improvements; that said liens shall have and take precedence over all other liens of every kind and nature whatsoever whether antecedent or subsequent in point of time, save and except annual or other regular tax liens; and that said liens shall be enforced and collected by the same officials, in the same manner and under the same penalties as to time and interest, as annual or other regular tax liens, and shall, when so paid or collected, be paid in and credited to the appropriate assessment fund, whether general or special, and be disbursed therefrom in such and no other manner as shall be provided in the ordinance creating such assessment and fund; to carry into effect by ordinance the powers hereinbefore granted in this subsection, but no ordinance shall provide for more than one project of any of the kinds named herein, nor create more than the one district, assessment, and fund necessary and appropriate therefor, and in each and every such ordinance provision shall be made for notice to any and all persons interested, giving them and each of them not less than two weeks from and after the date of depositing a notice in the post office at the municipality in a securely sealed post-paid wrapper addressed to each person affected thereby and assessed thereunder at his last known place of residence, or at the municipality if no place of residence is known, or to an agent who may be or may have been appointed by such-person in writing, in which to appear and file objection to either the work itself, the method or manner of assessment, the time or times and method of payment therefor, or to all thereof, and such other and further objection or objections as may seem to any such person or persons reasonable and proper in the premises; such notice shall set forth the nature of the proposed improvement, the estimated cost thereof, the total amount of the assessment to be levied therefor, and the amount to be levied upon each parcel of the property or possession of the addressee; any and every such appearance and objection shall be made and heard only before the municipal council, and said council may, at any such hearing, alter, modify, or increase the area of such district, the total assessment thereof, or any individual area or assessment objected to therein, and shall decide any and every such objection within ten days after the filing thereof and give notice of such decision to the person or persons interested in the manner hereinbefore provided for notice of such assessment within five days thereafter: Provided, That all assessments levied by virtue of this subsection shall be levied only upon the basis of the value of the land benefited and not upon improvements thereon, and that all valuations of any and all lands and premises made under the provisions hereof and for the purposes herein stated shall be the valuations thereof last regularly made for the purposes of annual taxation: Provided further, That no ordinance passed pursuant to the provisions of this section shall be valid or take effect until it shall have been approved by the provincial board and the department governor. The decision of the municipal council upon any objections made by a property owner may in its discretion be reviewed by the Court of First Instance, upon an appeal thereto filed within fifteen days after receipt by such property owner of notice of the decision of the municipal council. The court may order the appellant upon application therefor, to execute and file a bond as the necessity of the case may require. (n) Excess condemnation.—To acquire, take, condemn, or appropriate more land and property than is needed for actual construction in connection with any improvement herein authorized: Provided, however, That the additional land and property so authorized to be acquired, taken, condemned, or appropriated shall be no more than sufficient to form suitable building sites abutting on such improvement. After so much of the land and property has been appropriated for the improvement as is needed therefor, the remainder may be sold or leased. The municipal council is hereby further authorized and empowered to provide by general or special ordinance, the manner in which the power herein granted may be exercised, subject to the provisions of general law as to procedure: And provided further, That no ordinance passed pursuant to the provisions of this subsection shall be valid or take effect until it shall have been approved by the provincial board and the department governor. (o) Streets; lighting, cleaning, care, and control.—To provide for the lighting, cleaning, and sprinkling of streets control of and public places; to prevent and remove encroachments and obstructions upon the same; to regulate or prevent the use of the same for processions, signs, signposts, awnings, and awning posts; to prohibit the throwing or depositing of offal, garbage, refuse, or other offensive matter in the same, and to provide for its collection and disposition; to regulate the openings therein for the laying of gas, water, Fewer, and other pipes therein, the building and repair of tunnels, sewers, and drains, and all structures therein and thereunder, and the erecting of poles and stringing of wires therein; to provide for and regulate crosswalks, curbs, and gutters therein; to name and change the names of the same, and provide for and regulate the numbering of houses and lots fronting thereon; to regulate traffic and sales upon the same; to abate nuisances in the same and punish the authors or owners thereof; to construct, maintain, and regulate the use of bridges, viaducts, and culverts; to prevent and regulate amusements having a tendency to annoy persons using the streets or public places, or to frighten horses and other animals; to regulate the speed of horses and other animals, vehicles, and locomotives within the limits of the municipality. (p) Gas, electricity, telephones, and so forth.—To provide for the inspection of all gas, electric and telephone p ones< wires, conduits, meters, and other apparatus and the condemnation and correction or removal of the same when dangerous or defective. (q) Watertvorks and ivater supply.—To maintain water works for the purpose of supplying water to the inhabitants of the municipality, to purify the source of supply, and regulate the control and use of the water, and to fix and collect rents therefor; to regulate the construction, repair, and use of hydrants, pumps, cisterns, and reservoirs, and to prevent the waste of water. (r) Pounds, stray animals.—To establish and maintain a municipal pound and fix the fees for poundage; to regulate, restrict, or prohibit the running at large of domestic animals and fowls, and to provide for the distraining, impounding, and sale of the same for the penalty incurred and the cost of the proceedings or for killing in the event of failure of sale; also to impose penalties upon the owners of said, animals for the violation of any ordinance in relation thereto: Provided, That "large cattle" shall be disposed of in accordance with general law. (s) Dogs, possession of, regulated.—To license, tax, and regulate the possession of dogs, and authorize the killing of the same when at large contrary to ordinance; to require owners of large cattle as defined by section one of Act Numbered Eleven hundred and forty-seven, sheep, goats, and swine to keep such animals from moving, running, or being at large except when in charge of some person of sufficient discretion, and to penalize infractions of such regulations by fine or imprisonment or both. (t) Keeping and, use of animals.—To regulate the keeping and use of animals, in so far as the same affects the public health and the health of domestic animals. (w) Insanitary property.—To require any land or building which is in an insanitary condition to be cleansed at the expense of the owner or tenant, and, upon failure to comply with such an order, have the work done, and assess the expense upon the land or buildings. (v) Property below grade.—To fill up or require to be filled up to a grade necessary for proper sanitation any and all lands and premises which may be declared and duly reported by the health officer of the municipality as being insanitary by reason of being below such grade or which, in the opinion of the council, the public health or welfare may require. (w) Drains, setuers, and so forth.—To construct and keep in repair public drains, sewers, and cesspools, and regulate the construction and use of private waterclosets, privies, sewers, drains, and cesspools. (x) Burial of dead.—To prohibit the burial of the dead within the centers of population of the municipality and provide for their burial in such proper place and in such manner as the council may determine, subject to the provisions of Act Numbered Fourteen hundred and fifty-eight of the Philippine Commission. (y) Slaughterhouses and markets.—To establish or authorize the establishment of slaughterhouses and markets, and inspect and regulate the use of the same; to provide for and regulate the keeping, preparation, and sale of meat, fruits, poultry, milk, fish, vegetables, and all other provisions or articles of food offered for sale. (z) Enforcement of health laws and regulations.—To enforce health laws and regulations, and by ordinance to provide fines and penalties for violations of such regulations ; to adopt such other measures to prevent the introduction and spread of disease as may, from time to time, be deemed desirable or necessary. (aa) Nuisances.—To declare, prevent, and abate nuisances. (bb) Cockfighting.—To regulate and license or prohibit cockfighting and the keeping or training of fighting cocks, and to close cockpits subject to the provisions and restrictions of general law. (cc) Ringing of bells.—To regulate and restrain the ringing of bells and the making of loud or unusual noises. (dd) Police.—To establish, maintain, and regulate a police force subject to the provisions of section seventeen hereof, and the provisions of general law. (ee) Prison.—To establish, maintain, and regulate a municipal prison. (ff) Cruelty to animals.—To prohibit and provide for -«ueity to animals, the punishment of cruelty to animals. (gg) Disorderly and so forth.—To suppress or houses, regulate houses of ill fame and other disorderly houses; to e prohibit the printing, sale, or exhibition of immoral pictures, books, or publications of any description. (hh) Gambling, riots, and breaches of the peace.—To prevent and suppress riots, gambling, affrays, disturbances, and disorderly assemblies; to punish and prevent intoxication, fighting, quarreling, and all disorderly conduct; to make and enforce all necessary police ordinances, with the view to the confinement and reformation of vagrants, gamblers, disorderly persons, mendicants, and prostitutes, and persons convicted of violating any municipal ordinance. (ii) Penalties for violation of ordinances.—To fix penalties for violation of ordinances, but no single penalty shall exceed a fine of two hundred pesos or imprisonment for six months, or both; imprisonment shall be imposed in lieu of unpaid fines at the rate of one day's imprisonment for each peso of the fine: Provided, That persons undergoing imprisonment for violation of ordinances may be required to labor for the period of imprisonment upon public works of the municipality in such manner as may be directed by the municipal council: Provided, further, That whenever a person is imprisoned for nonpayment of a fine he shall be released upon payment of such fine, less one peso per day for each day that he has been confined: And provided further, That persons charged with violation of a municipal ordinance who cannot be tried immediately after arrest, shall be released by the chief of police or his authorized agents either upon personal recognizance or a cash bond not exceeding fifty per centum of the maximum fine provided in the ordinance. (jj) General welfare clause.—To make such further ordinances and regulations not repugnant to law, as may be necessary to carry into effect and discharge the powers and duties conferred by this Act, and such as shall seem necessary and proper to provide for the health and safety, promote the prosperity, improve the morals, peace, good order, comfort, and convenience of the municipality and the inhabitants thereof, and for the protection of property therein; and enforce obedience thereto with such lawful fines or penalties as the municipal council may prescribe under the provisions of subsection (ii) of this section.