THE Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in time for its 81st anniversary on November 21, will be launching an online registration system for easy registration of corporations in the country.
Ferdinand Sales, SEC director of the Company Registration and Monitoring Department, said the Company Registration System (CRS) is an online registration system for the registration of corporations (stock and non-stock corporations) and partnerships (general partnerships, limited partnerships, professional partnerships), in licensing of foreign corporations, branch office, representative of its regional headquarters, regional operating headquarters.
"This will be nationwide but in its launching, initial implementation, it would only be at the main office. That’s reason why we're here because it would have an impact to the transition period in respect to the registrants in Cagayan de Oro because it has to be handled first by the main office. Once it has settle, that the time we will deploy it here at the Cagayan de Oro extension office," Sales said.
Sales added that it will be after three to six months yet before the CRS will be deployed in its extension offices.
With the implementation of the CRS, Sales said the Philippines' ranking in the World Bank Group's flagship report "Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs," will go up.
The Doing Business project, launched in 2002, provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level. It also looks at domestic and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle.
The Philippines' ranking in the ease of doing business fell to 113th this year from 99th last year out of the 190 countries.
"When our rank is going up that means it is easy to do business in the Philippines. It would be in the mindset of the investors who would be investing in the country," Sales said.
The SEC Company Registration and Monitoring Department director said the CRS is a simplified procedure; there will be no more face-to-face transactions aside from submitting the hard copy to the SEC.
In using the CRS, Sales said, a certain internet speed is needed. He said if the speed of the internet is not in the standard set by the system, there will be a red flag indicator that the person's internet speed is not coping with the required internet speed.
"We have already coordinated with DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) and the DICT was very cooperative and supportive of this project so they gave us additional lines for the internet," Sales said.
He added that the next step the SEC will do is to work with DICT again for the extension offices.
"The extension offices are already advised to look for areas so they will have faster internet speed. The plans that we are thinking is to coordinate with the LGUs (local government units) to help us have some kiosk CRS. We are also coordinating with agencies of the government like the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry), it has Go Negosyo Center where we can provide kiosk," Sales said.
He said their priority is to work for the extension offices in Cebu City, which is the biggest extension office of the SEC, Davao City, and Cagayan de Oro City.
Sales encouraged everyone to register using the CRS as the manual processing for registration will be shut down once the CRS is implemented.
On Friday, November 10, SEC conducted a public orientation seminar in Mallberry Suites Hotel, Cagayan de Oro City, presenting the CRS to the representatives of the provinces and cities in Northern Mindanao.