The Cebu City Hall. CDN Digital photo | Brian J. Ochoa
CEBU CITY, Philippines — At least 5,000 business establishments (BE) in Cebu City failed to renew their business permits as of Jan. 31, 2023.
Latest data from the Cebu City Business Permit and Licensing Office (BPLO) showed that only 33,071 business establishments renewed their permits as of Jan. 31.
This is 5,478 short compared to the 38,549 registered BEs as of 2022.
When Sought for comment, Andrew Borres, BPLO head, told CDN Digital that several factors, such as the impact of Super Typhoon Odette and the Covid-19 pandemic could be considered why some businesses here failed to make it to the deadline of the business permit renewal.
“Huwat ta kung mo-renew [pa] sila. Normally, kanang uban nga naghuwat [pa] sila for renew, mao na na ang naa nay penalty,” he said.
(We will just wait if they will renew [their permits]. Normally, the others, who were waiting [to have their businesse permits] renewed, those are the ones that would be penalized.)
“[However], di sad ta makasulti [that they already stopped their operations]. Naagian baya ta og [Super Typhoon] Odette ug pandemic. Ang uban, wala kaayo makarecover,” he added.
([However, ] we cannot also say [that they already stopped operations]. We had experienced [super typhoon] Odette and the pandemic. Others had not recovered yet.)
In a separate interview, Cebu City Treasurer Mare Vae Reyes said that business owners who failed to pay after the deadline would be slapped with a penalty of two percent and a surcharge of 25 percent for every month of delay.
As of Jan. 31, the city government collected more than P1.4 billion in business taxes.
Meanwhile, a total of 366 business establishments were tagged as “retired” or have declared cease of operations for this year.
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