Regulating businesses

Egay Uy .

THE Regulatory and Complaint Board, aside from the usual monitoring and inspection rounds, conducted a “sweeping operation” in Barangay Bonbon from July 1 to 5 to check on the existence of unregistered pisonet-internet shops which were reported to be operating inside residential houses.

The tip came from a parent-school administrator who got the information from her school’s pupils. The information that was relayed to me was that  children were frequenting pisonet-internet shops in residential houses and presumably under the noses of barangay officials.

Thanks to the informant, as the RCB inspectorate team found, 43 of the 45 pisonet-internet shops that were initially checked did not have business permits.  That’s a whopping 96 percent of unregistered businesses. And the inspectorate team still has to check other areas in that barangay.

From the inspected shops, 95 minors were “rescued.” The tip that I received was reliable enough that I had to wonder what the barangay government could have done to curb these illegal businesses and the rampant violation of applicable provisions on minors of the Cagayan de Oro City Comprehensive Children’s Welfare Code of 2018.

The RCB inspectorate team was able to issue 70 notices of inspection findings to the business operators. Other nearby businesses were also inspected aside from the pisonet-internet shops. And of those inspected, only two were found to be compliant with regulations.

Not long ago, I led an RCB team that attended an assembly of the Liga ng mga Barangay where I made an earnest appeal to barangay officials to help the RCB regulate businesses under its jurisdiction (internet-pisonet shops are among them) if only to protect minors from the ill-effects of internet and violent video games addiction.

Of course, there were other barangays that readily cooperated. They came forward and accompanied the RCB team inspect businesses within their territorial jurisdictions. The results were also similar to the findings that are narrated above. For that I thank the Liga ng mga Barangay leadership and to the barangay officials themselves for cooperating. After all, it is for the good of their respective constituents.

Let me reiterate that the RCB, or the City Government for that matter, is not into the business of closing down businesses.  It is simply encouraging continuous compliance with regulations.  But, if businesses will continue to blatantly defy regulations, we will have no qualms recommending the closure of businesses through the suspension, temporarily or permanently, of their business permits.

And we reiterate the appeal to barangay officials to cooperate and truly regulate, within their respective capabilities, the businesses in their respective territories.

(Egay Uy is a lawyer. He chairs the City’s Regulatory and Complaint Board, co-chairs with the city mayor the City Price Coordinating Council, and chairs the city’s Joint Inspection Team.  He retired as a vice president of Cepalco.)