The Local Government Unit of Parañaque City, through the Business Permit Licensing Office, has created a streamlined business permits and licenses processing known as the Business One Stop Shop or BOSS under the “Bagong” Parañaque Program of the incumbent mayor of the said LGU.
From one of the existing papers on Business Permits and Licensing Office of Parañaque, a senior citizen was interviewed on her experience on the services of BPLO and she mentioned how the paperless application system in business renewal was beneficial to older people like her because the local government of Parañaque was open to the idea of streamlining the process and removed or combined some steps which made the whole process more efficient and therefore, easier for both the citizens and the assessors working for BPLO as well.
BPLO Parañaque is actually the first local government unit in the Philippines to start the total computerization process in BPLO. This is a very good sign on how a local government could adapt from the good performance of other countries and initiate this in our country to show that if others can do it for the betterment of service provision, then we can too. More than positively affecting the efficiency of the service, it is very environment-friendly because no application forms are needed anymore, still in-line with the vision of Parañaque to create a business-friendly atmosphere while preserving its environment at the same time. This innovative move of Parañaque makes the citizens experience a high quality of service that makes them trust their local government more and encourages them to participate in their community better. If the citizens feel that the government is taking care of them, they will be motivated to increase their level of productivity.
In 2018, a member of the group interviewed an ukay-ukay store owner for another paper in another Public Administration major. At that time, my group wanted to check the performance of BPLO Muntinlupa by comparing it with BPLO Quezon City. While the ukay-ukay owner was narrating his experiences, it can be easily observed that there are steps that really brought a lot of hassle for them. Instead of maximizing their time selling their products and earning money, they had to go back and forth to the BPLO branch to finish the licensing requirements annually. He suddenly opened to me how his store also had a branch in Parañaque and how it was a lot easier for them to operate in there because the process was more reasonable, innovative, and therefore, very much efficient. This actually was one of the motivators of our group for choosing to focus on the analysis of the business-friendliness of Parañaque. Just by looking at this example already shows how the good provision of services by the local government can entice its citizens to become more active in their community participation.
Governance is always a two-way street. The government should provide quality services and gain the trust of its citizens. In turn, the citizens should utilize the goods and services provided to them by becoming productive members of their respective communities. Economics plays a very important role in explaining how the efficiency of Parañaque BPLO can lead to more business investments from small-scale up to the large-scale in the LGU which will of course contribute to their overall income and therefore, improve their economy.
The discussion so far has been consistently giving praise to Parañaque as it has been really successful when it comes to attracting businesses which is good for the overall Gross Domestic Product of Parañaque and the Philippines in general. We cannot deny that its citizens are benefiting from this, but the next question that we have to ask now is that whether majority of the people that actually gain something from this are actually from Parañaque.
Being the home of the Baclaran Church and the Solaire Resort and Casino plus the established fact that it has a good performing BPLO that basically attracts income, Parañaque definitely entices many private and foreign investors in collaborating with the local government. This may be good for our economy, but to what expense? Are the people from Parañaque still the ones getting benefit from all these? Around April 2018, the SM group expressed its intent to make the border of Pasay and Parañaque the “next Hongkong” through a reclamation. This will come together with the proposed lowering of the corporate income tax rates. They already received the go signal through the environmental compliance certificate, approval of Pasay, and designs were already submitted to the Philippine Reclamation Authority. Although these information refer to Pasay, they are aiming to work next on the Parañaque side this 2019.
Also, another alarming case is the influx of Chinese nationals in Parañaque. Aside from them dominating it, there are illegal settlers being caught. A news reported in April 2019 narrated a Chinese national kidnapped after not being able to pay his debt from Casino financiers. Although the Chinese national was the one aggrieved here, this still is a threat to the safety of the Parañaque citizens. There was another news on a Chinese chef in Parañaque beating up a woman for trying to grab a bite of chicharon. First of all, he could have addressed the situation in a proper way, but what makes it worse is that he did not even have a permit for operating his business here in the Philippines, specifically in Parañaque and he had the guts to do that. It was also reported how there seems to be a “new China town” being built in Parañaque which shows how much the Chinese have dominated the local government unit. They are able to establish businesses such as restaurants and really give the government a huge amount of money for this, but they continue to disrespect and disobey even the simplest rule of providing english translations for their menus which was required of them in the first place. Would we really allow this situation to continually happen? At this point, we should already be noticing how the Chinese nationals take advantage of our country. We should be alarmed by this. Although we are open to globalization and the improvement of our economy, we should always remember that the Philippines is for the Filipinos. We can only hope that Parañaque can find ways to draw the line between business friendliness vs abuse of its rights the same way it was innovative in establishing the efficient BPLO that they have now.
While inclusivity and ease of doing business are important factors that are crucial to the success of Parañaque’s initiative, measures must also be taken in terms of monitoring and control in order to avoid the aforementioned issues. In doing so, the local government must implement stricter rules and regulations in business operations as well as increasing efforts to routinely monitor the establishments. Fines may also be imposed to hold violators accountable.
Whilst efforts to improve the BPLS in the local governance may result to citizens becoming mere receivers of action rather than active participants in this process. However, participation of the civil society and private sector may not only be confined to these actions but can be extended to further benefit both sectors through the economic and societal effects of such actions. Since the project primarily concerns the citizen, the said project makes civil society participation a must in conducting such reforms. Government processes reforms must not be confined in the administrative level but must also include the voice of the citizen as they are the primary benefactors and development partners of such reforms. The benefits of such would primarily reside in the efficiency and effect on public service that coincides with the mandate of the government to provide quality and efficient public service as well as to ensure the legality and welfare of business ventures. Second, the feedback and input from the actual clientele of the said process provides a different viewpoint than those of the administrators or think tanks in the government. As such, garnering public representation and citizen participation provides the administrators with the context outside the “ivory tower”, which may then result to a more citizen needs-based reforms that would best benefit the most. Thirdly, participation of the public may provide as sense of inclusion, responsibility, and added trust on the government. The barriers to such participation, however, lies on the actual will of both the local government and the civil society in such actions.
The recognition and awarding of Ranking No.1 in the ARTA Compliance Survey of CSC and Bantay.ph incurs that the new is a success so far. Stakeholders are being treated as customers or clienteles rather than citizens who must be encouraged to participate in the decision-making of these projects, involved in their implementation, and empowered to do so. In which case, the local government of Paranaque evaluates and concludes that in order to increase customer satisfaction, you need to constantly innovate and improve on the experience of transacting with government. In this sense, citizens are not empowered to participate but treated like customers wherein they are “always right” and should be satisfied with the services offered by the government. They note that the more you streamline the process, the more you save time and money for both the taxpayer and government. The new system was intelligently created to be more efficient for the government and the citizen, which was made it a success. Then again, governance is a two-way street, and there should also be avenues for policy influences and voice that should come from the citizens to improve more efficient and sustainable processes in all departments of the government.
Aside from this, the local government must reevaluate its target benefactors as well as the key stakeholders in their initiative – local business owners. By shifting their focus towards ensuring that their needs are catered to, the Business One Stop Shop initiative plays a big role in enabling and encouraging the growth of local businesses, thereby contributing to local growth as well as setting an example for other LGUs to follow.
REFERENCES:
https://www.philstar.com/business/2019/02/07/1891405/new-year-new-chinese-influx
Click to access Paranaque_City1.pdf
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