The City Council—Powers.
Section 14
SEC. 14. The City Council—Powers.—The City Council shall have power by ordinance or resolution: To make all appropriations for the expenses of government of the city, and establish and fix therein the salaries of city officers and employees, except teachers in the public schools, subject to approval by the Department Head. To provide for the levy and collection of taxes and other city revenues, as provided by law, and apply the same to the payment of municipal expenses in accordance with appropriations. 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, 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, dance halls, circus, and other similar parades, public vehicles, horse races, bowling alleys, pawnbrokers, dealers in secondhand 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, regulate, or prohibit 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; to regulate and license signs, signboards, and billboards displayed or maintained in any place exposed to public view, except those displayed at the place or places where the professions or business advertised thereby is in whole or part conducted. If after due investigation, the Mayor 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 Department Head, whose action on the appeal shall be final. Such revocation shall operate to forfeit to the city all sums which may have been paid for said license and to prohibit the issuance to the person whose license is so revoked of any other license for a term which may be fixed in said order. To make regulations for the conducting of the business of the persons and places named in subsection (c) of this section. To regulate the business and fix the location of blacksmith shops, foundries, steam boilers, steam engines, lumberyards, 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, hemp, cotton, nitroglycerin, petroleum, or any of the products thereof and of all other highly combustible or explosive materials. To regulate the use of the streets and public places by vehicles; to regulate garages and stables and the keeping of carriages, carts, and other conveyances for hire; and to designate stands to be occupied by public vehicles when not in use. To provide for the erection or rental and care of buildings necessary for the use of the city. To establish and maintain public schools, subject to the limitations of law. To establish fire limits and regulate the kinds of buildings and structures that may be erected within said limits, and the manner of constructing and repairing the same. To erect engine houses, 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. Until further provisions made, the law providing for fire protection in municipalities having no paid fire department, shall apply to the city. To regulate the use of lights in stables, shops, and the buildings and places, and to regulate or restrain the building of bonfires and the use of firecrackers, fireworks, torpedoes, and pyrotechnic displays. To make suitable provisions to insure the public safety from conflagrations and the effects of storms, and other public calamities, and to provide relief for persons suffering from the same. 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 the 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 city, especially on the property benefited, or on all the property within any stated area or district within the bounds of said city 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 city; to provide for the payment of such compensation as maybe 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 therefore any amount or amounts which maybe 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 city in a securely sealed postpaid wrapper addressed to each person affected thereby and assessed thereunder at his last known place of residence, or at the city 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 City 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 of 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. And 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 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. To provide for the lighting, cleaning, and sprinkling of streets 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, sign-posts, 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 sewer, 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 city. To provide for the inspection of all gas, electric and telephone wires, conduits, meters, and other apparatus and the condemnation and correction or removal of the same when dangerous or defective. To maintain waterworks for the purposes of supplying water to the inhabitants of the city, 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 to waste of water; and for the purpose of protecting and insuring the purity and quantity of the water supply of the city, to extend its ordinance over all territories within the drainage area of such water supply, and within one hundred meters of any reservoir, conduit, canal, aqueduct, pumping station, of watershed used in connection with the water service. To establish and maintain a city pound and fix the fees for poundage; regulate, restrict, or prohibit the running at large of domestic animals and dogs unlicensed, and provide for the distraining, impounding, and killing or sale of the same for the penalty incurred and the cost of the proceedings; also impose penalties upon the owners of said animals for the violation of any ordinance in relation thereto. But carabaos, horses, mules, asses, and all members of the bovine family shall be disposed of in accordance with general law. To regulate the keeping and use of animals, in so far as the same affects the public health and the health of domestic animals. 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. 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 Philippine Health Service 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. To construct and keep in repair public drains, sewers, and cesspools, and regulate the construction and use of private water closets, privies, sewers, drains, and cesspools. To prohibit the burial of the dead within the center 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 the general law regulating burial grounds and cemeteries and governing funerals and the disposal of the dead. 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. To enforce the regulations of the Philippine Health Service, 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. To declare, prevent, and abate nuisances. To provide for the recording of births, marriages, and deaths. To establish, maintain, and regulate a police force and prescribe the powers and duties of its members. (aa) To establish, maintain, and regulate a city prison. (bb) To prohibit and provide for the punishment of cruelty to animals. (cc) To suppress gambling houses, houses of ill fame and other disorderly houses; to prohibit the printing, sale, or exhibition of immoral pictures, books, or publications of any description. (dd) To prevent and suppress riots, 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, disorderly persons, mendicants, and prostitutes, and persons convicted of violating any city ordinance. (ee) To establish, regulate, and maintain city departments and prescribe the powers and duties thereof and readjust the same. (ff) To construct, erect, and establish a public light, heat, and power supply and installation system, and to that end to purchase, expropriate, or otherwise acquire all lands which may be necessary, and to build, erect, and construct any and all buildings, stations, and other structures, and to purchase any or all such machinery, poles, wires, wagon, trucks, or other vehicles, supplies, and equipment as may now or hereafter be necessary to the successful operation of such system, as may be provided, by law. (gg) To maintain and operate any electric light, heat or power supply and installation system, however acquired, to keep the same in repair, to alter, increase, extend, improve, enlarge or modify the same or any part thereof, to replace worn or useless parts, machinery, poles, animals, vehicles, trucks, wires, and other equipment, and to operate, control, and manage the same. (hh) For any and all the purposes contemplated in the last two preceding subsections to enter, if necessary, into contracts for partial or deferred payment, to appoint and employ such officers, clerks, employees, and laborers as may be necessary, and to appropriate funds of the City of Tagaytay for all the purposes aforesaid. (ii) To enter into contracts with, and to supply electric light, heat, current, and other service to residents, merchants, business men, and manufacturers in and about the City of Tagaytay at rates and for prices not less than sufficient properly to maintain and operate any such plant or system and to pay for depreciations in the same and for renewals and replacements of any and all parts thereof and for all extensions, improvements, enlargements, alterations, or changes thereof and therein. (jj) To enter into a contract of lease, and to rent or lease any electric light, heat, or power supply or installation system whether erected, constructed, and established by the City Council, or acquired by it through purchase, grant, or conveyance, or in any other manner, to any person or persons, or to any corporation, for proper and sufficient consideration and subject to the right of supervision and control by the City Council over the operation of such system and over the amount of heat, light, power and current delivered, and the character of other services rendered and of the rates and amounts charged therefor. (kk) 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; but imprisonment shall be imposed in lieu of unpaid fines at the rate of one day's imprisonment for each peso of the fine. Persons undergoing imprisonment for violation of ordinances may be required to labor for the period of imprisonment upon public works of the city in such manner as may be directed by the City Council. 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. Pending appeal the defendant shall remain in custody unless released upon sufficient bail, in accordance with the general provisions of law, to await the judgment of the appellate court. (ll) 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 deem necessary and proper to provide for the health and safety, promote the prosperity, improve the morals, peace, good order, comfort, and convenience of the city and the inhabitants thereof, and for the protection of property therein; and enforce obedience thereto with such lawful fines or penalties as the City Council may prescribe under the provisions of subsection (kk) of this section.