Section 12
SEC. 12. General powers and duties of the council-The City Council shall have power by ordinance or resolution: (a) To make all appropriations for the expenses of the government of the city, and establish and fix the salaries of city officers and employees whose salaries are not otherwise provided in this Charter, provided that the rate thereof shall not exceed those fixed in the schedule of salary established by the competent authority. (b) To provide for the levy and collection of taxes and other city revenues and apply the same to the payment of city expenses in accordance with appropriations. (c) To tax, fix the license fee, and regulate the business of the following: Hawkers, peddlers, hucksters, not including hucksters or peddlers who sell only native vegetable fruits or food, personally carried by the hucksters peddlers, auctioneers, plumbers, barbers, embalmers, collecting agencies, mercantile agencies, transportation companies and agencies, advertising agents, tattooers, hotels, clubs, restaurants, lodging houses, boarding houses, livery stables, private police detectives, private detective agencies, special police agencies, guard agencies, special watchmen agencies, massage clinics, masseur and masseuse, chiropodists, hair dressing and beauty parlors, painters, clubs, night clubs, boarding stables, dealers in large cattle and hogs, laundries, cleaning and dyeing establishments for the storage of highly combustible or explosive materials, public warehouses, circus, and other performances and places of amusement, public vehicles, horse races, bowling alleys, pawn brokers, dealers in secondhand merchandise, junk dealers, billiard or pool tables, theaters, theatrical performances and other performances and places of amusement, shooting galleries, slot machines not used for gaming, and other similar riding devices, brewers, distilleries, rectifiers, money changers, real estate and commercial brokers, other stockbrokers, the keeping of, preparation, and sale of meat, poultry, fish, game, butter, cheese, lard, vegetables, bread and other provisions, dance halls or schools, physical or beauty culture and fashion schools, blacksmith shops, foundries, lumberyards, the storage and sale of gunpowder, tar, pitch, resin, coal, oil, gasoline, benzine, turpentine, hemp, cotton, nitroglycerine, 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 conflagration or explosions, soap factories, tailor shops, dress shops, milliners, manufactures of embroideries, native cloths, rope, papers, slippers or sandals or both, harness and valises or bags, furniture of all kinds, including rattan goods, wire brass beds or both, men's shirts, hats, printers or bookbinders or both, dyes, bottles or glasswares or both, salted or dried fish or both, fertilizers, nails, and buttons, dealers in hardwares, glasswares, electrical goods and construction materials, groceries, drugstores, dealers of arms, ammunitions, and sporting goods, and such other business, trades and occupation as may be established or practiced in the city, the selling, giving away, deposing in any manner of any intoxicating liquors, signs, signboards, and billboards, displayed or maintained in any place or places where the profession or business advertised thereby is in whole or in part conducted. (d) To make regulations for the conducting of the business to the persons and places named in subsection (c) of this section. To regulate the business and fix the location 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, nitroglycerine, petroleum, or any of the products thereof and of all other highly combustible or explosive materials. (e) To regulate the use of 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. (f) To provide for the erection or rental and care of buildings necessary for the use of the city. (g) To establish and maintain public schools, subject to limitations of law. (h) 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. (i) 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. (j) To regulate the use of 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. (k) To make suitable provisions to insure the public safety from conflagrations and mitigate the effects of storms and other public calamities, and to provide relief for persons suffering from the same. (l) 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, signposts, awning, and awning posts; to prohibit placing, depositing, leaving or throwing of offal, garbage, refuse, or other offensive matter in the same, and to provide for its collection and disposition; to regulate the opening 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 all streets and public places 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 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. (m) Notwithstanding the provisions of any existing law to the contrary, the City Council shall have the exclusive power to provide for the inspection, placing, stringing, attaching, installing, repair and construction of all gas, electric telegraph and telephone wires, conduits, meters and other apparatus or electrical appliances, and the condemnation and correction or removal of the same when dangerous and defective. (n) To maintain waterworks for the purposes of supplying water to the inhabitants of the city, to purify the source of supply, to 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 and for the purpose of protecting and insuring the purity and quantity of the water supply of the city, to extend its finance over all territories within the drainage area of such water supply, and within one hundred meters of any reservoir, conduit, canal, aqueduct, pumping station, or watershed used in connection with the water service. (o) 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. (p) To regulate the keeping and use of animals, in so far as the same affects the public health and the health of domestic animals. (q) To require any land or building which is in an insanitary condition to be cleaned 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. (r) 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 City Department of Health 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. (s) 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. (t) To prohibit the burial of the dead within the center of population of the city 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 disposal of the dead. (u) To establish or authorize the establishment of slaughterhouses and markets, and inspect and regulate the keeping preparation, and sale of meat, fruits, poultry, milk, vegetables, and other provisions or articles of food one for sale. (v) To enforce the regulations of the Department of Health, 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. (w) To declare, prevent, and abate nuisances. (x) To provide for the recording of births, marriages, and deaths. (y) To establish, maintain, and regulate a police force and prescribe the powers and duties of its members. (z) To establish, maintain, and regulate a city prison. (aa) To prohibit and provide for the punishment of cruelty to animals. (bb) To suppress gambling houses, houses of ill fame and other disorderly houses; and to prohibit the printing, sale, or exhibition of immoral pictures, books, or publications of any description. (cc) To prevent and suppress riots, affrays, disturbances, and disorderly assemblies; to punish and prevent intoxication, fighting, quarreling, and all disorderly conduct; and 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. (dd) To establish, regulate, and maintain city departments, and prescribe the powers and duties thereof and readjust the same. (ee) To construct, erect, and establish a public light, heat and power supply and installation system, and to the 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, wagons, trucks, or other vehicles, supplies, and equipment as may low or hereafter be necessary to the successful operation of such system, as may be provided by law. (ff) 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. (gg) 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 for all the purposes aforesaid. (hh) To enter into contracts with, and to supply electric light, heat, current, and other services to residents, merchants, businessmen, and manufacturers in and about the city 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 all extensions, improvements, enlargements, alterations, or changes thereof and therein. (ii) 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. (jj) To fix the 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 two pesos and fifty centavos of the fine. Persons undergoing imprisonment for violation of ordinances may be required to labor for the period of imprisonment upon works of the city in such manner as be directed by the City Council. Whenever a person imprisoned for nonpayment of a fine, he shall be released upon payment of such fines, less two pesos and fifty centavos 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. In case of violation of ordinance about building construction, the City Council, in addition to the penalties authorized in the preceding paragraph, may further impose the penalty of removal or demolition of the building or structure by the owner or by the city at the expense of the owner. (kk) To authorize the free distribution of medicines to the employees and laborers whose salary or wage does not exceed one hundred fifty pesos per month or five pesos per day; of fresh native milk to indigent mothers residing in the city, the distribution to be made under the direct supervision and control of the Mayor. (ll) To fix the tariff of fees and charges for all services rendered by the city or any of its departments, branches or offices. (mm) 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 agencies; and, with the approval of the Director of Public Schools, to fix reasonable tuition fees for instruction in the vocational schools and in other educational institutions supported by the city. (nn) To tax, license and regulate boxing, bowling, billiards, pools, horse or dog races, cockpits, roller or ice-skating or any sporting or athletic contests, as well as grant exclusive rights to establishments for this purpose, notwithstanding any existing law to the contrary. (oo) 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 it 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 the City Council may prescribe under the provisions of subsection (jj) of this section.