The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) will request the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) for waiver of penalties for any breach of the 30 percent work-from-home (WFH) limit of its registered business enterprises.
PEZA OIC Deputy Director General Tereso O. Panga said that penalties against PEZA firms that breached the 30 percent WFH limit could include withdrawal of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives or those penalties that were not prescribed in the letters of authority (LOAs) issued by PEZA to these firms.
According to Panga, PEZA has met recently with the FIRB technical working group to iron out the “stringent penalties and conditions” imposed additionally by the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Bureau of Customs.
Panga viewed these additional penalties inconsistent with the CREATE law and FIRB resolutions, and which were issued without prior consultation with the investment promotion agencies. “This regulatory incoherence will surely impact on the viability of existing and prospective IT investors of PEZA,” Panga said.
PEZA is banking on the support of DTI Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual, who is also PEZA chairman and co-chair of the FIRB, to sustain the industry's appeal given the mounting calls of some Senators to liberalize the WFH policy to ensure that ecozone locators keep their incentives while availing of the flexiwork and as a measure to atrract more investments into the country.
“We feel that the government can be more proactive and responsive to the needs of ecozone locators if it will extend to them the WFH privileges under a hybrid work set-up,” he said.
This solution, Panga said, will not only put PEZA on equal footing with the Board of Investments since both agencies offer the same incentives to their registered business enterprises, but will also make the Philippines apace with India and other forward-thinking economies that have adopted WFH and hybrid work as the new normal.