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[av_heading tag=’h3′ padding=’10’ heading=’Shorter biz permit processing in Bacolod’ color=” style=’blockquote modern-quote’ custom_font=” size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ custom_class=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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Tuesday, December 20, 2016
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BACOLOD City – Applying for or renewing a business permit at city hall will soon take a much shorter time.
From five steps, the city government compressed the process to three steps, according to Stela Rose Rayos, head of the Permits and Licensing Division (PLD).
This came in light of an interagency memo calling for the streamlining of business permit application processes in local government units and agencies.
According to Rayos, processing a business permit includes the following steps:
1. File an application for business at the PLD.
2. One-time assessment of taxes, fees and charges at the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO).
3. One-time payment of taxes, fees and charges, and receipt of official receipt and claiming of the Mayor’s Permit and other regulatory permits and clearances at the CTO’s Cashier Section and the PLD.
Step 1 includes securing the application form (either personally from the PLD or by downloading it from the city government’s website, www.bacolodcity.gov.ph), which used to be a separate step, Rayos said.
Under the new process, city hall aims to release the business permit within two days for new applications and within a day for renewals, she said.
Joint Memorandum Circular No. 1, series of 2016 mandates all local government units, as well as the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), and Bureau of Fire Protection to revise current standards in business permit and license processing.
Issued by the DILG, DTI and DICT on Aug. 30, the memo stated that processing time for business registrations should not exceed one to two days for new business permit applications and one day for renewals.
Here, the process starts Jan. 3, 2017.
City hall’s Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) Core Team will monitor it until Jan. 20 “for whatever refinement that may be needed,” Mayor Evelio Leonardia said in Memorandum No. 234 issued Dec. 16.
“To implement (Joint Memorandum Circular No. 1) more effectively, additional work assignments and policies agreed upon during the meeting on Dec. 15 with the ARTA Core Team and the Technical Working Group for the Streamlining of Business Permits Processing shall take effect immediately,” Leonardia said.
The mayor’s memo was addressed to City Treasurer Giovanni Balalilhe; Human Resource and Management Officer Erman Aguirre, vice chairman of the ARTA Core Team; Secretary to the Mayor Edward Cuansing; and all PLD and CTO officials and staffers.
Leonardia said the project will help businesspeople secure regulatory permits “as quickly as possible without compromising compliance with legal requirements.”
“It is important to adopt the one-time assessment and one-time payment rules to replace any previous system where applicants have to keep coming back to follow up their applications until their business permits are finally issued and released,” he said.
The new process “is a public service they deserve,” said the mayor. “Businesspeople sustain our economy, provide jobs and pay the taxes that enable government to provide its citizens the services they need.”/PN
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