BAGUIO CITY – The City Council approved a resolution encouraging the city’s residents to engage in home-based businesses to supplement their budget during and after the implementation of the community quarantine period.
Further, the council, in a resolution, requested the Cordillera offices of the Department of trade and Industry (DTI-CAR), the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA-CAR) and all technical-vocational institutions (TVIs) in the city to offer trainings, workshops, among other programs, to constituents interested in engaging in home-based businesses.
The City Council also urged the concerned offices of the city government to help the interested residents engaging in home-based businesses to promote and market their goods.
City legislators underscored that in line with the new normal, it is vital that the industriousness among the residents should be encouraged aside from the city government providing them with the necessary means to further develop their entrepreneurial skills that will allow them to be resilient.
According to the city legislative body, the city government, as a way of realizing its policy of strengthening livelihood and entrepreneurial services, should find ways to help promote and market the goods of the residents engaged in home-based businesses which is a way for the city to encourage others to put up their similar businesses.
Section 19 and 20, Article 2, of the Philippine Constitution guarantees that the State shall develop a self-reliant and independent national economy effectively controlled by Filipinos and that the State recognizes the indispensable role of the private sector, encourage private enterprises, and provide incentives to needed investments.
The council defined a home-based business as any business where the primary office is located in the owner’s home such as food and beverage, bread and pastry, craft products.
Aside from generating the much needed income for the families involved in the said business, home-based businesses can also help provide employment for those economically affected by the quarantine period.
Earlier, the city government adopted a policy of a responsive education program that propagates the alternative learning system, encourage technical-vocational studies.
Moreover, the city also embraced a policy of strengthening livelihood and entrepreneurial services that will help in providing the residents with decent income that will be used to uplift the living condition of their families amidst the prevalence of the threat of the Corona virus Disease (COVID) 2019.
The council admits the enforcement of the Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and now downgraded to general community quarantine (GCQ) due to the COVID outbreak had an adverse effect to the country’s economy and the people relying on businesses as their major source of income.
The council asserts that the forced closure of businesses caused the significant increase in the country’s unemployment, thus, the need for residents to be creative for them to sustain the income-generation of people that could be used to uplift the living condition of their families.
By Dexter A. See