Bongao Municipal Hall

Great service.

The Bongao display is fascinating and is directly opposite to the souvenir store so while my friends are busy looking for items to buy, me and my friend decided to take a picture of the marker. Bongao offers exquisite seafoods at a very affordable and cheap price. This is a haven for seafood lovers. We bought a lot of crabs, lobsters, and other crustacean-like foods at a very cheap price. I will definitely go back here.

The present site of Bongao Municipal Hall, the seat of local governance for Tawi-tawi's capital town, has been its home since the LGU's corporate existence in 1958. With population count(NSO,2010) of 79,544 at an average annual population growth rate of 2.6% , the LGU is challenged by many socio-economic demands of a fast urbanizing community of people,dominated by the Sama and Tausug ethnic groups and spruced by other ethnic groups from both Luzon and Visayas who found Bongao as a promising new home and offers a relatively peaceful co-existence to all. Standing true to its being the Investment Center of the country's southernmost province, local laws and development policies are continuously polished,enhanced, and even redesigned through the collective efforts of the LCE, SB, NGAs, and the Civil Society Organizations(CSOs). Focused have been recently undertaken by the LGU on its Local Revenue Generation and other Economic Enterprise mechanisms. Initiated with the General Revision of its 11 year old Local Tax Code in Sept. 2013, collection sources were revisited, assessed, and adjusted by a TWG consisted by the different focal persons of the LGU's departments and other partners from concerned NGAs. With the series of public hearings and sectoral consultations, the Tax Code was finally approved in December 2013 but only saw implementation in February 2014 as other mechanisms had to be established and made ready for the new rates on fees and charges that included new areas of local tax regulation to be effectively implemented. The dynamism of a growing economy relying heavily on business and trading of basic goods, marine resources, communication services and take off point to nearby Sabah,Malaysia, created a compelling effect for more responsive local policies. Thus, most recently three ordinances were wrapped-up after series of public hearings and their publication in Tawi Tawi Mirror, the only paper published and being circulated in the province of Tawi tawi for more than a decade now, targeted on December 12. Considered as a policy-proof of Bongao's strategic development role, an ordinance requiring all business establishments to be equipped with CCTVs is hoped to ensure that investors are safe and secured while attending to their businesses as one of the features of the local law is to connect certain areas of every establishment to a central monitoring and recording unit that will be under the composite Law Enforcement Units consisting the BACC at the Municipal Hall. Designed to be a crime pre emptive strategy as well as deterrent against lawlessness, this will influence investors' decision to put more of their capital in Bongao, thus, resulting to employment opportunities for the unemployed. On making streets of Bongao business-friendly and in a way decongest heavy traffic, another ordinance aims to limit the number of commercial tricycle at its present total number by banning the entrance at the ports of sidecars while local shops are to be regulated on body building of the same. The 3rd Ordinance to be implemented by 2nd week of January 2015 is the Fare Rate Adjustment Ordinance, setting fare rates from point to point within Bongao along with other areas ensuring that passengers will not be left helpless to drivers' exorbitant fare charges. In the next remaining weeks of this year till the moratorium set for affected sectors, the Municipal Hall of Bongao is expected to have higher number of clienteles to be served in comparison to the previous years. Of course, local revenue collection is likewise expected to increase by a couple of millions as a result of the LGU's exercise of its combined police and taxing power through these ordinances.