Thursday, July 10, 2008 So: Business permit processing, abridged By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
IT is far longer to listen to how to cut the red tape in renewing a business permit than to actually renew a business permit in Barili, Cebu.
In other words, you get your renewed business permit 30 minutes after you have handed it to the Barili treasurer’s office. If you listen to how to lessen the time spent in getting business licenses, it will take you an entire day, lunch and two snacks covered and with some snooze here and there.
Barili Mayor Teresito Marinas, whose town has been made one of the six pilots of the business permit and licensing system (BPLS), presented a brief and concise testimonial of how the abbreviated procedure helped the town improve its business environment since January this year.
Whoever made the mayor’s Powerpoint presentation must be commended for keeping it audience-friendly. It is the kind needed for a gathering that tends to make participants yawn and absently nod in agreement with the speaker.
The BPLS is one of the many acronyms I came across at the launching of the reference manual “Towards One Business Permit and Licensing System” yesterday at Parklane Hotel in Cebu City. Other acronyms are GTZ-DILG-DTI, SMEDSEP, LRED, NERBAC and for all I know had I listened very well, HUKBALAHAP.
I attended the launching upon the invitation of a former college classmate, Jingjing Marino Farrarons, as a way to pay her back for texting me that I was “mas gwapa” than Vilma Santos in our picture that came out in Sun.Star Cebu last Tuesday. Had it not been for this visual appraisal, which I would have believed had Roger Federer won the Wimbledon championship, I wouldn’t have bothered going. Flattery, at times, can lead you somewhere.
Anyway, back to Mayor Marinas. He said that when the town adopted the BPLS last January, it posted a 47 percent increase in business tax and permit revenues in this year’s business renewal season compared to last year’s.
The BPLS cuts the number of steps in applying for a new business license from eight to four, and in renewing a license from five to three. Because of this, it also cuts processing time, documentary requirements and number of signatories. It’s efficiency in public service delivery at its best.
What Mayor Marinas didn’t say, Dr. Herwig Mayer did, which I paraphrase: Occurrence of corruption is less.
Mayer is the program manager of German Technical Cooperation or the GTZ, which is developing the BPLS with the help of the Departments of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). It will take me three more hours of mandatory listening to explain what the other acronyms earlier mentioned are.
The BPLS, or the business processing and license system lest I forget what these letters mean, is also being piloted in Consolacion in Cebu, Palompon and Ormoc in Leyte, Bacolod City and Iloilo City. But it is in Barili where much better results of the program have been noted. This explains Mayor Marinas’ name in the program.
In the spirit of fairness, I have to mention that the other pilot areas have posted an average of 26 percent increase in their business tax and permit revenues for the same period mentioned for Barili.
That’s why the reference manual, which was written based on the experiences of the pilot areas, was introduced yesterday to other local government units in Cebu for them to adopt the BPLS.
The BPLS will leave people in government and business more time to look up the meaning of HUKBALAHAP.
