Permits, visas for sale

You can call it whatever you want, depending on where you are, who you are and which Philippine office you’re dealing with.

“For the boys,” “SOP,” “ECC – early campaign contribution (not environmental compliance certificate),” “payola” are just some of the common terms used to refer to grease money.

Businesses in the Philippines know all too well that it’s part of doing business in the country. As I’ve noted in past columns, the bureaucracy is flawed by design because there is a universe of syndicates benefitting from it.

This means that when dealing with a government office, more often than not, your transaction will take time or you will be given the runaround and then when you’re at your wits’ end, you’re then offered an option wherein you can just pay some fixers or brokers to speed things up.

Foreign nationals know this, too. What an embarrassment for us and yet we want the world to Love the Philippines.

I hope that this new year, we will see an end to this practice.

I’m writing about this now because just before 2023 ended, I heard some disturbing extortion stories.

Some two months ago, embassy workers from a Philippine embassy abroad extorted money from foreign nationals applying for a visa to go to the Philippines, industry sources told me.

Workers from this Philippine embassy were asking P40,000 from each visa applicant. This is on top of the standard visa fee and the applicants were told that if they don’t pay, their visa application will not be facilitated.

Some of the victims are Chinese nationals and some of them are here in the Philippines because they decided to just pay the P40,000, rather than not have their visa processed.

However, other foreign nationals, I’m told, are opting to just visit other countries.

Here at home, we’re hearing that some local fire departments are demanding higher-than-usual cash payments for fire permits, which are necessary for businesses to secure their business permits from a locality.

Aside from raising the cost of doing business in the Philippines, this is also a very dangerous practice. If fire permits are just for sale, does that mean that the structures aren’t necessarily safe? Does that mean you can get your