By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat
The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) yesterday convened the implementing agencies of the National Business One-Stop Shop (NBOSS) for a simulation of automated company registrations in one central location.
The implementing agencies include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Social Security System, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, and Pag-IBIG.
The NBOSS is an initiative of ARTA, in collaboration with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the abovementioned implementing agencies, to improve the country’s score in the Starting a Business indicator for the World Bank’s Doing Business (DB) Report. The NBOSS aims to co-locate, unify, and automate the services of national government agencies to provide convenience to the public by accepting applications of company registrations in a central location.
During the event, DICT conducted a demonstration to ARTA, the implementing agencies, World Bank International Finance Commission, and New Zealand Ambassador to the Philippines David Strachan of the end-to-end online company registration process lodged to the Phase 1 of the Central Business Portal (CBP) which was launched by DICT last 10 October 2019. The event was also aimed to test the process flow of the CBP system which will feature company name verification, unified form, unified employer and employee reporting, and payment of fees – all of which made to be doable online once completely implemented.
According to ARTA Director-General Jeremiah Belgica, apart from its enforcement initiatives in combating he red tape problem, ARTA highly recognizes the significance of these kind of initiatives aimed at improving the ease of doing business in the country in our government’s economic development efforts.
Particularly, ARTA seeks to improve our rankings in the DB Report as it provides foreign investors with an insight on how it would be like for them to do business in the Philippines.
Right after the simulation, Director General Belgica also took part in the launch of the Virtual Pag-IBIG, still at PICC. The Virtual Pag-IBIG will allow Pag-IBIG members to accomplish their transactions such as Membership ID number, remit and pay for their contributions and loan amortizations, and view their savings and loan records online.
Belgica commended this initiative of Pag-IBIG, especially since being previously named by President Duterte as one of the most-complained government agencies in his most recent State of the Nation Address. “This initiative of Pag-IBIG, among others, shows that if a government agency wills it, they can effect technological change that will bring government service up to speed with the 4th Industrial revolution,” he said.