Sep 30, 2011
Putting up your own business can be very rewarding in many ways, but it can also be tricky and confusing particularly in the beginning when you are scrambling to obtain your certificates of registration and various licenses and permits.
Your first stop is, of course, the Department of Trade and Industry if you are registering your enterprise as a single proprietorship, or the Securities and Exchange Commission if you are registering it as a corporation or a partnership.
Then your second and third stops are the municipal or city hall and the barangay hall for their respective clearances. Your fourth stop all the way to the eighth stop are the following registration entities: the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Social Security System, the Department of Labor and Employment (if you employ five workers or more), the Home Development Mutual Fund (for your workers’ housing fund), and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (for your workers’ health insurance).
And these are just for starters. Depending on your type of business, you may also have to register with the following licensing entities: the Movie & Television Review and Classification Board, the Bureau of Food and Drugs, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, the National Telecommunication Commission, the Land Transport Franchise and Regulatory Board, the Optical Media Board, and several other bureaus and agencies.
These, of course, are just for the licenses, clearances, and permits required by law for businesses in general. An even more important requirement—one that directly impinges on the kind of business you intend to pursue—are the requirements for where you will be doing your business.
As they say in the business community, the biggest success factor for any enterprise— the one that you really need to plan very carefully—is location, location, location! Do you want to put up your business within an industrial or a commercial area? If you choose commercial, do you want it in a high-density or a medium-density commercial area? Do you want your business located directly in front of or beside your competitor?
Your choice of location obviously will depend on your target market and, consequently, will determine the level of your sales. The most important concept that you will encounter when searching for an appropriate business location is “zoning.” But what precisely is zoning?
Zoning is the division of a community into zones or districts according to the current potential uses of a certain land area. So, anyone who occupies, purchases, or leases property should be familiar with the zoning law in the area. Have you ever wondered why so many competing funeral establishments are lined up in a row on a specific street? Or why drive-in motels tend to be located in clusters in specific areas? The answer is zoning.
The laws on zoning, which usually come in the form of ordinances enacted by local governments, are designed to optimize and regulate the use of land. Among the recognized benefits of zoning are the promotion of public health, welfare, and safety through segregation of residential areas from industrial areas; the promotion of public peace, comfort, and convenience by segregating noisy or malodorous industries; the prevention of unnecessary congestion of buildings and establishments; the promotion of the uniform use of real estate in the district or zone; and the promotion of real-estate values.
There are many zone classifications, but for business purposes, the following two types of zones are the most relevant: commercial zone (which is usually subdivided into areas of low, medium and high density); and industrial zone (subdivided into light, medium, and heavy). Depending on the nature of your business, you may also need to check out the following zones in your municipality or city: agricultural, institutional, residential, parks, and tourism sites.
Every local government unit has its own zoning ordinance, but most of them are merely modified copies of the Revised Model Zoning Ordinance issued by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board.
As a business owner, you must ensure that your establishment complies with the zoning ordinance in the area; otherwise, you might expose yourself to potential complaints from neighboring establishments, not to mention possible closure of your establishment as a nuisance.
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