Tag: business

How to get Locational Clearance for your Mayor’s Business Permit in Makati City Hall
Before you can get the Mayor’s Permit for your business, you need to get a Locational Clearance first.

Following are the requirements you should prepare to get your Locational Clearance.

Requirements for Locational Clearance as listed in the application form:
- Vicinity / Location Map
- Barangay Business Clearance
- Contract of Lease / Certification
- DTI / SEC Articles
- Occupancy Permit
- CCT / TCT / OCT / DENR Certification
- Authorization Letter (for representative)
- Old Mayor’s permit
- Others, if any will be required after inspection/evaluation
Where to apply for Locational Clearance

The office that receives Locational Clearance application is at the 2nd floor of the “old building” of Makati City Hall.

Some online resources say that it’s at the 5th floor — even the city hall staff inside the elevator today said it’s at the 5th, but we went there today (Jan. 15, 2020) and found that it had been moved to the 2nd floor.

My own experience in applying for a Locational Clearance

When I visited the office that files Locational Clearance, I went straight to the counter labeled as “Receiving”.

The staff checked the required documents that I brought with me. He compiled my vicinity/location map, barangay business clearance and plate photocopy, contract of lease photocopy, and DTI business name registration certificate photocopy. Please do bring the original ones too, even if he didn’t include the originals in the compilation, he inspected them.

I missed one requirement: Occupancy Permit or Certificate of Occupancy. I thought it was the same as the contract of lease, but nope. This is what a Certificate of Occupancy looks like:

Sample “certificate of occupancy” as shown when I was applying for Locational Clearance in Makati City Hall

The city hall staff handed me the compiled documents and told me I should photocopy the filled out application form, then have 3 copies ready for the notary. The application form must be notarized before he files the Locational Clearance application. For the notary, I’ll need cedula, the compiled documents, plus the certificate of occupancy that I’m still missing.

I will try to head straight to a nearby notary public once I get my certificate of occupancy to save on the number of visits to Makati City Hall.

//2021 Update: I did not push through with this. I stopped renting a place for my shop due to our pandemic situation. If I ever process documents such as this again, I’ll try to write about it! I hope you are all doing fine in this difficult time. Stay safe and socially distant, everyone. 😷
January 14, 2020
Business clearance application at Barangay Bangkal, Makati City
I visited the barangay hall at Bangkal to apply for business clearance. Let me share in this blog entry what it was like.

Please note that this is for a new sole proprietorship business.

Requirements to apply for business clearance at Barangay Bangkal, Makati
- Filled out green form, “business clearance application and data sheet”
- DTI certificate of business name registration with application form, or SEC REG with articles of inc. and by laws
- Contract of lease or certificate of title
- Payment (300 for the plate and a variable value depending on the capital; Read on for approximate costs)
After inquiring about the business clearance requirements, I asked for a green form that I could fill out at home.

This is what the green application form of Bangkal’s barangay hall looks like:

Business clearance application process at Bangkal’s Barangay Hall

These are the simple steps to take during application for a business clearance from the barangay hall:
1. Assessment of documents
2. Payment
3. Printing and Release
Assessment of documents for business clearance from the barangay hall

I asked around the barangay hall where I should head to for business clearance application. They pointed me to a desk with a label “barangay clearance”.

The lady in the desk assessed my documents and began filling out the bottom-left portion of my green form. My barangay clearance fee was 650 pesos, based on the capital amount that I declared. The business plate costed me 300 pesos. As a newbie business person, I’m not sure if I also need to renew the plate yearly. Then there’s this 100 pesos “inspection fee” — what inspection did I pay for? Their inspection of my docs? Yeah, I know I should have asked them earlier. They gave me a number for queuing at the last step of the application, as well as the total amount to be paid. The total amount that I was charged was 1050 pesos. Oops, I only brought 500! 🤣I asked for the closest ATM in the area and they pointed me to the BDO ATM at Evangelista St., which was less than 5 minutes away from the barangay hall.

Payment for business clearance at Bangkal Barangay Hall

There weren’t too many people in the queue for the barangay hall’s cashier, fortunately. I was surprised to see a staff of a supermarket that I frequently visit paying for their barangay clearance renewal. I *accidentally* saw that they were charged 2020 pesos for the renewal. My eyes were very active at that time so I also accidentally saw that another guy was charged a total of 1050 pesos, same as mine, but with a different breakdown. His clearance fee was 850, business plate was 100, and inspection fee was 100. Why is his business plate only 100? Is it because he’s already renewing? Anyway, I made sure that I got my official receipt before leaving the cashier.

Printing and Release of business clearance at Bangkal Barangay Hall

If there was a long wait during my application for a business clearance, this was when it happened though it wasn’t so bad because I was just sitting down, awkwardly, with other people in the queue. Awkward isn’t so bad because I’m used to it. Who arranged those chairs so close to one another?! 🤣The lady in the printing and release desk asked for my queue number and documents, as well as the official receipt from the cashier.

After a while she handed me my business plate. I rejoiced deep inside while keeping my poker face on. It’s the first time I ever held one! Luh, ang babaw.

The next thing handed to me was a “Barangay Business Registration and Clearance” document, signed by the barangay captain. Speaking of barangay captain, his name is Mario and the official Facebook page of Barangay Bangkal seems to have a lot of Super Mario pictures. 😂

Ahhh! Finally I am another step closer to my goal of paying tax for my small business. Makes me wonder where tax really goes because I’m not happy with our country anymore…

Before leaving the barangay hall…

Before you leave the barangay hall, make sure you received the following:
- Official Receipt
- Business Plate
- “Barangay Business Registration and Clearance” document
Thank you Bangkal Barangay Hall for the approachable staff and painless process!

Next step: Mayor’s Permit

To get your Mayor’s Permit, one of the major requirements is Locational Clearance.
January 2, 2020
GCash Customer Service – Does it even exist?

I run a small baked-per-order goods business and many of my customers wanted to pay in GCash so granted them their wish to make payment more convenient. Prior to this, we used to accept bank transfer/deposit only, but when my husband showed me that he could cash-out money from his GCash account by sending it to his bank account, I knew we could make the business work with GCash because I’ll just transfer payments from the business’ GCash account to the business’ bank account. I created a GCash account and began accepting payments through it.

Then I found out that in order to send to banks, I need to get “verified”. And so I went through the full verification process: Uploaded a picture of my government-issued ID, a selfie, and my personal details. The GCash app said that it should only take 30 minutes to get verified.

For 30 minutes I waited, and received no SMS, email, or app notification from GCash. Ok, cool, maybe it’s just a bit delayed! I waited an hour more; still none. I waited one day, two days…. still no feedback on my GCash full verification status!

This is what my Get Verified screen looks like in the GCash app:

GCash app – upgrade in progress in Get Verified screen

You’ll see that it says “Upgrade in progress” in my GCash app’s Get Verified screen. That message just sits there 24/7 and never changes.

I tried to ask for help from GCash Care on Facebook Messenger, and all it does is make a chat bot get my hopes up that they will help me, but I never seem to be chatting with an actual customer service person.

We tried calling the GCash hotline 2882 but we couldn’t get any customer service staff to answer even when we waited for over 30 minutes.

The last thing I tried was write an email to [email protected] but same as GCash Care on Facebook Messenger, all the responses that I received were automatic responses.

GCash caused my stress level to soar up so bad, worrying that they might deduct money from my account due to inactivity and all our business’ earnings will be taken by GCash. Why do I worry about this? Because that periodic deduction is why I didn’t push through with using GCash before. I want to be able keep an account inactive for a long time without getting charged. I think the big problem is they don’t send out warning before charging! They send a notification AFTER CHARGING.

I wrote a rant post about this on my Facebook just to let off some steam, and a former colleague suggested that I just try to cash-out my money at Villarica Pawnshop. I will probably try that soon and hope it works, because I don’t wanna lose our money. It’s just extremely disappointing. I decided that we let our business’ customers pay via GCash because I thought I will be able to transfer money directly from GCash to the business’ bank account, but it’s not happening because no one at GCash can help me out with the full verification of my account.

July 11, 2019