A leader of the House of Representatives is pushing for the passage of a bill providing a broad range of support measures, such as loans, training, grants, and registration assistance, for small online businesses.
In House Bill 7698, or the Online Small Enterprise Support Services Act of 2020, House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Joey Sarte Salceda said small online businesses are “the saviors of the Covid-19 economy.”
“Small online businesses are the saviors of the Covid-19 economy. We would see far more unemployment and far more poverty if Filipino households did not turn to small online businesses,” Salceda said.
Under the bill, small online businesses, which would be online firms with less than P1 million in annual sales, would be eligible for cheap loans from government banks, free credit reports, grants and training from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), and other benefits and assistance.
The measure aims to provide adequate capital and credit access for individuals seeking to operate small online enterprises by mandating the government banks to offer small business loans at competitive rates, and by providing small online businesses with free credit reports and credit scores. It also aims to facilitate the registration and operation of such enterprises, and streamline government support services relevant to their needs, by creating a small online business one-stop portal for all support services.
The measure mandates the set up of an Online Negosyo Center. The bill will assist small online enterprises adapt to new trends and developments in the digital space by mandating TESDA to provide training programs on supply chain management, marketing, packaging, maintenance of online selling spaces, consumer relations, laws and regulations on online selling, and other aspects of online entrepreneurship. Grants will be given to displaced workers and other sectors in need, upon completion of the TESDA training programs.
The bill also calls on the Department of Information and Communication Technology and the Department of Trade and Industry to help existing businesses migrate to the online space.
It encourages the creation of online enterprises among rural communities by mandating the Agricultural Credit Policy Council to create and develop a credit facility for farmers seeking to become small online entrepreneurs specializing in agricultural products. The bill also mandates the Department of Agriculture to help farmers and fisherfolk find direct market access online, and, if they should want to, become online entrepreneurs themselves. “Many online businesses sprung up over the past few months because of Covid-19. Unfortunately, many of them are still unregistered. Instead of punishing them for simply trying to make a living, my approach is to make registration worth it. If you’re a small online business, you serve the economy, whether registered or not. But we will offer generous benefits if you register and pay taxes. It’s a fair and humane deal,” Salceda said.
Citing the April 2020 Labor Force Survey, the lawmaker added the class of workers the survey calls “Self-employed without any paid employee,” are saving the economy.
“In fact, as a share of the labor force, 28.7 percent of all workers in April 2020 were from this class of worker, up from 27.3 percent in April 2019,” he said.
“In practical terms, the ‘self-employed without any paid employee’ are primarily the online entrepreneurs, who have initiated new online businesses, via social media and other platforms. In fact, during the quarantines, many microfirms proved resilient. According to the ADB Philippine Enterprise Survey on Covid-19 Impact, about 44 percent of businesses fully open were micro enterprises, while only 25.5 percent were small businesses, 17 percent were medium, and 13 percent were large,” Salceda added.