General powers and duties of the council.
Section 14
SEC. 14. General powers and duties of the council.—Except as otherwise provided by law, and subject to the conditions and limitations thereof, the council shall have the following legislative powers: (a) To levy and collect taxes for general and special purposes in accordance with law. (b) To fix the schedule of fees for services rendered by the city or any of its departments, branches or offices. (c) To provide for the erection, maintenance and rental of the necessary buildings for the use of the city (d) To provide for the establishment and maintenance of free public schools, at least, for intermediate instruction. (e) To establish or aid in the establishment and maintenance of vocational schools and institutions of higher learning conducted by the National Government or any of its subdivisions and branches, and with the approval of the Director of Public Schools, to fix reasonable tuition fees for instruction in the vocational schools. (f) To provide for the establishment and maintenance of a police force in the city and enact the necessary police ordinances, with a view to the confinement and reformation of vagrants, disorderly persons, mendicants, and persons convicted for the violation of any of the ordinances of the city. (g) Within the poblacion, to establish fire zones, determine the kinds of buildings or structures that may be erected within the limits of said zones, regulate the manner of their construction and repair, and fix the fees for permits for the construction, repair or demolition of buildings and structures. (h) To establish and maintain fire stations, fire engines, hose carts, hooks and ladders and other equipment for the prevention and extinguishment of fires, to regulate the handling and use of the same and to provide personnel therefor. (i) To regulate the use of light in stables, shops and other 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. (j) To issue regulations to protect the public from conflagrations and to prevent and mitigate the effect of famine, floods, storms and other public calamities, and to provide reliefs for persons suffering from the same. (k) To regulate and fix the amount of license fees for the following: hawkers, peddlers, hucksters, not including hucksters or peddlers who sell only native vegetables, fruits or goods personally carried by the hucksters or peddlers; auctioneers, plumbers, barbers, embalmers, collecting agencies, mercantile agencies, shipping and intelligence officers, private detective agencies, advertising agencies, massagists, tattooers, jugglers, acrobats, hotels, clubs, restaurants, cafes, lodging houses, board houses, dealers in large cattle, public billiard tables, laundries, cleaning and dyeing establishments, public warehouses, dance halls, cabarets, circus and other similar parades, public vehicles, race tracks, horse races, bowling alleys, shooting galleries, slot machines, merry-go-rounds, pawnshops, dealers in second hand merchandise, junk dealers, brewers, distillers, rectifiers, money changers and brokers, public ferries, theaters, theatrical performances, cinematographs, public exhibitions, circuses, and all other performances and places of amusements, and the keeping, preparation and sale of meat, poultry, fish, game, butter, cheese, lard, vegetables, bread and other provisions. To levy taxes and fix the license fees for (a) dealers in new automobiles or accessories thereof, or both; and (b) retail dealers in new merchandise not yet subject to the payment of any city tax. For taxation purposes, these retail dealers shall be divided into the following classes: (1) retail dealers engaged exclusively in the sale of (a) textiles, including knitted wares; (b) hardwares, including glass wares, cooking utensils, electrical goods and construction materials; (c) groceries; (d) drugs, including Medicine and perfumery; (e) books, including stationary, Paper and office supplies; (f) jewelry; (g) slippers; (h) arms, munitions and sporting goods. (I) To tax, fix the license fee for, regulate the business and fix the location of match factories, blacksmith shops, foundries, steam boilers, lumber mills, lumber-yards, shipyards, the storage and sale of gun powder, tar, pitch, resin, coal, oil, gasoline, benzine, turpentine, hemp, cotton, nitro-glycerine, petroleum, or any of the products thereof, and of all other highly combustible or explosive materials, and other establishments likely to endanger the public safety or give rise to conflagrations or explosions, and, subject to the rules and regulations issued by the Bureau of Health, in accordance with law, tanneries, lard factories, tallow chandleries, bone factories and soap factories. (m) To impose tax on automobiles and other vehicles, and draft animals not paying any national tax: Provided, That all automobiles and trucks belonging to the National Government or to any provincial or municipal government; shall be exempt from such tax. (n) To regulate the method of using steam engines and boilers, and all other motive powers other than marine, or not belonging to the Government of the Philippines; to provide for the inspection thereof, and fix a reasonable fee for such inspection and to regulate and fix the fees for the licenses of the engineers engaged in operating the same. (o) To enact ordinances for the maintenance and preservation of peace and good morals. (p) To regulate and fix the license fees for the keeping of dogs and authorize their impounding and destruction when running at large contrary to ordinances, and to tax and regulate the keeping or training of fighting cocks within the poblacion. (q) To establish and maintain city 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. (r) To prohibit and provide for the punishment of cruelty to animals. (s) To regulate the inspection, weighing and measuring of brick, lumber, coal and other articles of merchandise. (t) 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 lighting, cleaning and sprinkling of streets and public places; to regulate and fix the license fees for setting signs, signposts, awning posts, the carrying or displaying of banners, placards, advertisements, or handbills, or the flying of signs, flags, or banners, whether along, across, over or from buildings, or along the same; to prohibit the placing, throwing, depositing or leaving of obstacles of any kind, offal, garbage, refuse or other offensive matters 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 opening in the same fix the license fees for, and regulate the opening 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 provide for and regulate crosswalks, curbs and gutters therein; to name streets without a name 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 or 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 within the limits of the city; to regulate the lights used on vehicles, cars and locomotives; to regulate the locating, constructing and laying of the track of horse, electric and other forms of railroad in the streets and other Public places of the city authorized by law; to provide for 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 and under their tracks so that the natural drainage of the streets and adjacent property shall not be obstructed. (u) To provide for the construction and maintenance of canals and regulate the navigation of water courses within the city and provide for the clearing and purification of the same; to provide for the construction and maintenance, and regulate the use, of public landing places, wharves, piers, docks and levees, and of those private ownership; and to provide for and regulate the drainage and filling of private premises when necessary in the enforcement of sanitary ordinances approved in accordance with law. (v) To fix the charges to be paid by all water craft landing at or using public wharves, docks, levees, or landing places. (w) To provide for the maintenance of waterworks for the purpose of supplying water to the inhabitants of the city, and for the purification of the source of supply and the places through which the same passes, and to regulate the consumption and use of the water; to fix and provide for the collection of the rents or charges therefor, and to regulate the construction, repair and use of hydrants, pumps, cisterns and reservoirs. (x) To provide for the establishment and maintenance and to regulate the use of public drains, sewers, latrines and cesspools. (y) Subject to the rules and regulations issued by the Bureau of Health in accordance with law, to provide for the establishment and maintenance, fix the fees for the use of, and regulate, public stables, laundries and baths, and public markets and slaughterhouses. (z) 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 or in the sale or supply of gas, electricity or in the telephone and street railway service; to fix and regulate the rates thereof when they have not been so fixed and regulated by Acts of the Congress of the Philippines; to regulate and provide for the inspection of all gas, electric, telephone, and street railway conduits, mains, meters, and other apparatus and equipment, and provide for the condemnation, substitution or removal of the same when defective or dangerous. (aa) To declare, prevent and provide for the abatement of nuisances; to regulate the ringing of bells and 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 to 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 fees for the use of property on or near public ways, grounds, 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 in part conducted. (bb) To provide for the enforcement of the rules and regulations of the Bureau of Health and by ordinance to prescribe penalties for violations of such rules and regulations. (cc) To extend its ordinances over all water courses within the city, and three miles into the sea from the limits of said city, over any boat or other floating structures over its waters and, for the purpose of protecting and insuring the purity of the water supply of the city, over all territory within the drainage area of such water supply and within one hundred meters of any reservoir, conduit, canal, aqueduct, or pumping station used in connection with the water service of the city. (dd) To regulate and levy taxes on cockfighting within the city including the prohibition of admission into the establishments or places where cockfightings are held of minor children under the age of fourteen years. (ee) To enact all ordinances it may deem necessary and proper for the sanitation and safety, the furtherance of the property and 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 Act, and to fix the 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 a single offense.