BAGUIO CITY – The City Permits and Licensing Division under the City Mayor’s Office reported a significant increase in the number of business permit applications during the first month of the present administration compared to those who applied for the issuance of permits during the same period last year.
City Permits and Licensing Officer Allan Abayao disclosed that from July 1-31, 2019, there were some 1,020 permits that were issued by the said office which is 31.08 percent more than the 731 permits that were issued by the local government during the same month last year.
However, he claimed that the number of special permits issued by the local government in July this year which was 1,389 was lower by 11.35 percent compared to the 1,567 special permits that were issued in the same period last year.
Last year, the local government issued a total of 28,250 regular and special permits wherein 20,709 were classified as regular permits while 7,541 were special permits.
From January 1 to July 31 this year, Abayao stated that the local government was able to already issue some 20,037 regular permits and some 5,709 special permits or a total of 25,738 regular and special permits.
In terms of closure orders, Abayao revealed that Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong was able to issue some 498 closure orders wherein 460 orders were already served to the establishments while 38 have yet to be implemented.
He explained that 235 of the issued closure orders were issued by former Mayor Mauricio Domogan and were re-issued by Mayor Magalong for consistency purposes.
The city permits and licensing officer stated that there had been a consistent increase in the number of regular business permits that were issued by the local government over the past 5 years and even during the first 7 months of this year which shows that the city remains to be a favourite investment hub of individuals interested to do business considering that Baguio city is the trade and commerce center of the Cordillera.
Based on the statistics obtained from the City Permits and Licensing office, the local government issued some 17,158 regular permits in 2014, 18,370 regular permits in 2015, 19,083 regular permits in 2016, 19,590 regular permits in 2017 and 20,709 regular permits last year.
Abayao stipulated that the local government will be able to exceed the number of regular permits that were issued last year based on the established trend of increasing number of applications for issuance of regular permits from individuals interested to conduct businesses in the different parts of the city.
Earlier, the local government streamlined the issuance of business permits wherein applicants can be issued their desired permits in less than one hour once their requirements are complete and will be fed into the system for processing.
Abayao appealed to the applicants to ensure that their documentary requirements are complete when processing their applications with the office so that they can be issued the same within an hour after their documents shall have been entered into the system./Dexter A. See
