More than 100 years after Andres Bonifacio and other members of the Katipunan tore up their cedulas to signify their separation from Spain, Bureau of Internal Revenue commissioner Kim Henares said the rest of us may be able to do the same soon.
At a press conference on Friday, Henares said she favors phasing out the Spanish-era Community Tax Certificate. “Now, when you have a document notarised, they don’t even look at the cedula anymore because people know you can get those anywhere,” she said in Filipino on a GMA News Online report.
She added that although the national government pays for the printing of the cedulas, money collected by local governments is not remitted to the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
The CTC, now issued at barangay halls, was introduced during Spanish colonial times and was given to locals who had already paid their residence tax. They served as identification papers and locals were required to keep them on their person at all times.
They are rarely accepted as identification in present-day Manila and have become a largely useless document.
