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QC City Treasurer VICTOR Endriga

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The Manila Times, August 12, 2005

QC treasurer tapped

for finance position
By MAX V. DE LEON, The Manila Times Reporter

The Quezon City treasurer, Victor Endriga, has reportedly been invited to join President Arroyo’s economic team either as commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue or undersecretary of finance.

A reliable source from the Department of Finance said Endriga has had several meetings with Mrs. Arroyo (right photo) and Finance Secretary Margarito Teves after the resignation of former BIR Commissioner Guillermo Parayno and nine other Cabinet officials on July 8.

In their meeting last week at the finance head office, Teves reportedly asked Endriga if he was interested in heading the BIR.

Endriga has also been offered an undersecretary position to head the department’s Bureau of Local Government Finance according to the source.

Endriga cannot be reached but his assistant, Amador Leano, confirmed the meetings with Teves.

Leano refused to give details of the offer, saying it was premature at this time.

When Teves (left photo) went to Davao at the end of July, he reportedly brought along Endriga, who also heads the Provincial and City Treasurers Association of the Philippines.

Endriga is widely credited for making Quezon City the "richest city in the Philippines." The city is the only one operating on a surplus of over P2 billion.

Before his transfer to Quezon City in 2001, Endriga was Pasig City treasurer.

He was a classmate of Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye (right) at the Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Teves and Endriga are also discussing signing a memorandum of agreement between the BIR and treasurers’ association to deputize local treasurers in the collection of value-added tax and other national taxes to plug tax leakages.

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.  August 22, 2005 QC set to sue MRTC A ranking Quezon City official yesterday threatened to sue the Metro Rail Transit Corp. for its continued refusal to settle P2.7 billion in unpaid real estate taxes. City treasurer Victor Endriga is confident that the city has legal grounds to sue the train company and directed the city legal officer, Christian Valencia, to study the filing of a petition to force MRTC pay the taxes it allegedly owes the city. Endriga said MRTC refused to turn over its properties, facilities and operations to the city government despite the lapse of the one-year prescriptive redemption period last July 30. The train firm filed a civil suit before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court barring the Land Registration Authority from transferring the land title from MRTC to the city in October last year. Endriga included the MRTC in the list of delinquent taxpayers and auctioned its properties and machinery on July 30, 2004 to pay for the P2.7 billion tax arrears but there were no takers. Endriga said the MRTC management, the Sobrepeña Group of Companies, was given a one-year redemption period, arguing that MRTC was not exempt from local taxes allowed by the Local Government Code of 1991. Rio N. Araja