BAGUIO CITY– Concerned netizens raised some valid issues and concerns against the drastic implementation of the cashless transaction in the city amidst the absence of the required widespread public consultations and the necessary ordinance governing the enforcement of the same.
The sources, who opted not to divulge their identities, argued that the cashless system that must be put in place should be able to accept transactions from other companies offering the same service and not for a pre-selected company to be dictating the terms of enforcement that will defeat the purpose of the imposition.
Further, they pointed out that the cashless transaction should be voluntary on the part of the businessmen, market vendors, public transport operators, among others because imposing the mandatory basis for the cashless transaction is without substantial legal basis and defeats the right of the people to choose their desired mode of transaction involving money.
The netizens also questioned the P55 required maintaining balance on the card that will be provided by the company, saying that the said amount could go a long way in the daily transactions of people unlike in the cashless transactions being done in other countries where the cards could still be used to transact business up to zero balance.
According to the sources, there are still no sufficient studies that will prove that the exchange of money is among the major modes of transmission of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), thus, using the same as the sole basis to justify the implementation of the cashless transaction is not sufficient to warrant the mandatory enforcement of the cashless transaction in the city.
The sources added that generally, the implementation of cashless transaction would just be part of the unnecessary expenses during the prevailing crisis situation because of the need to procure the needed devise to read the cards of customers as people have still better priorities in the use of their limited budget instead of going to the said type of transactions.
The sources asserted that there are existing debit cards being offered by banks and other establishments in the city, thus, it is still best to tie up with the existing ones to facilitate the implementation of cashless transaction instead of allegedly allowing a certain company to do the same that might add up to the further confusion of the public.
For now, the sources claimed that people are not yet ready to embrace the implementation of cashless transaction because since its launching, only a limited number of city residents opted to avail of the same while most of the populace preferred to do regular cash transactions.
The netizens emphasized that the issues and concerns being raised against the cashless transaction should not be interpreted as an outright opposition to the same because decision-makers should understand that people have their own priorities in life, especially that their sources of livelihood had been heavily impacted by the pandemic, thus, imposing an additional burden on them should not be the way to go to survive the effects of the crisis situation.
They stipulated that the city must make sure that people are ready to embrace the cashless transaction before making the same mandatory to avoid the occurrence of problems on the availment of the same in the future.
By Hent