Supported by the DILG Regional Office, the Business Permits & Licensing System (BPLS) streamlining rolled out on July 20, 2012 at Casa Mea Hotel in Ipil, capital town in Zamboanga Sibugay, which is the national identified target for 2012 for the region 9.

The one- day activity was attended by BPLS technical working group composed of BPLOs, IT staff of the Mayor’s Office, other local  staff,  MLGOOs of the municipalities of Tungawan, RT Lim, Ipil, Kabasalan and Imelda. Likewise present were   Mayor Eldwin Alibutdan of Ipil and Mayor Randy Climaco of Tungawan .

The orientation ran smoothly with the BPLS Program Presentation by Benonie Galambao, LGOO V, the Provincial BPLS Focal Person.  He started the discussion with P-Noy’s message at the 2010 SONA with the competitiveness level of the Philippines leading to the need for reforms.  Then he cited the legal basis, benefits, four (4) components of the program closing with the words of the President that “All will certainly benefit from this streamlining.”

Oliver Ombos, cluster Leader stressed out the BPLS Standards-New and Renewal of Business .  His presentation started with the definition of terms on the BPLS.  Then he focused his discussion on the reforms standards and the existing practices vis-à-vis the re-engineering reform process.  Moreover, he also showed the flow of the process in business registration in the applicants’ perspective leaving the participants to rethink of the actual experiences in their localities.

The Unified Form and Reduction of signatures was taken over by Lowell Vallecer, IO- DTI RO9. He showed the information fields in the Unified form and its benefits while discussing the possible reduction of cost and procedures and signatures with the use of the One single/Unified Form. He also presented the Philippine Business Registry project of the DTI.

After the lunch break, Nelson  Arang, an IT of the municipality of Ipil made the eBPLS Presentation showing screen shots of the automated BPLS in their LGU.  Mayor Alibutdan further gave encouraging words to the participants of the several benefits of BPLS streamlining in such a way that they could acquire their own eBPLS.

Thereafter, LGOO Galambao discussed the support mechanisms necessary for the institutionalization of the project like the Memorandum of Agreement between the LGU and the DTI/DILG and sanggunian resolution or Executive Order, for the next steps.

The Results Based Monitoring and Evaluation was presented by Anita Casipong, the Regional BPLS Focal Person. In her presentation, she explained the need for the results based M & E moving from the traditional monitoring and evaluation approach and showed the enhanced BPLS M & E Forms to be used to look at the outcome of the program.