Every January, the business community — from the sari-sari store owners and tricycle drivers to those employing hundreds of workers — goes through a tedious process of weaving through the government bureaucracy to get their respective Mayor’s Permits to be able to continue their operations or start a new one.
As expected, people crowd around various tables in at least 13 local offices and national agencies, securing signatures and clearances for their papers to move forward.
This has been the practice since time immemorial — when computers were unheard of.
Our leaders may like to think they are “forward-looking” and are keeping up with the times, but whenever January comes around, the backwardness of our system is there for all to see.
Since the pandemic, securing that business permit from City Hall has even become a hazard to one’s health.
Many doctors believe the Omicron variant of CoViD-19 is right in our midst, going by the swiftness of the transmissions in the community.
There has got to be a way to get business permits approved quicker, and without having to stand in queue, or worse, crowd around a tiny table, and expose one’s self to modern health hazards.
Interestingly, desktop computers abound in all government offices, but their use appears to be sadly limited to having replaced the typewriter.
There’s got to be a way to maximize the use of these computers to simplify the system, and make government service more efficient.
The City has a law that required it to “promote ease of doing business and efficient delivery of government services” and embrace digitization by 2021, and bring it up to par with even the smaller LGUs in the country. What has become of that?
With elections around the corner, it would seem that nothing will happen to make that law a reality this year, and we would again be stuck with this same backward system when the business community gets their business permits in year 2023.
Getting a business permit has always been about having a lot of Patience. Now, it also requires a lot of Luck — that one makes it through the process without getting infected by the virus.
