AN IMPROVED and more efficient processing of business permits await businessmen and investors in Macabebe town as the local government here on Monday, February 18, launched its automated electronic Business Permit and Licensing System (e-BPLS).
The system, developed and managed by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), is the first to be launched and utilized in the province which aims to help local government units in the efficient processing, implementation and monitoring of its business permits and licenses.
Macabebe BPLS officer Rosanna dela Cruz said that with the launching of e-BPLS, the time for processing business permits and licenses would be cut down to five to ten minutes from the usual day-long using the manual process.
“The processing of business permits will be much quicker now that we are automated. We can also easily monitor the status of the documents and our investors and businessmen need not to go back-and-forth to every department because the system will do it for them,” she explained.
Mayor Anette Flores-Balgan, for her part, said that the local government’s shift to the automated system will also lessen, if not totally stamp out, corruption in the processing of business permits.
“We must update our system and have it automated to ensure less to zero corruption in line with our goal to provide good governance,” Flores-Balgan said.
The lady mayor added that the system will also help in promoting economic development and in improving delivery of services to the people.
Department of Interior and Local Government-Pampanga provincial director Myrvi Fabia, meanwhile, lauded the local government of Macabebe for its initiative to avail of and implement the e-BPLS provided by the DICT.
She said that Macabebe town is just the fourth in the province to have e-BPLS after San Simon, the City of San Fernando and Mabalacat City, but is the first to adapt the DICT-developed system.
Fabia urged other local government units (LGUs) in the province to avail of the DICT system which is given for free through the agency’s website as part of their compliance to the national government’s call to implement ease of doing business.
It is directive of the President to make government services fast and efficient. I hope other LGUs will follow suit,” she said.