The Department of Trade and Industry on Tuesday encouraged IT-business process management companies to register with the Board of Investments to exempt them from the geographical limitation which is intrinsic to operating within economic zones.
Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the government is open to expanding the ratio of off-site or work-from-home arrangement, if not for the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act which limits all operations of business enterprises registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority inside economic zones.
“It’s provided in the law that the activities will have to be performed within the zones. So that’s our limitation. So the next move, there should be a revision of the PEZA law or the alternative for other companies, especially those planning to expand, is to register under the BOI,” said Lopez.
He said companies registered with BOI could still avail of the same set of incentives, “and yet, there will be no limitation on their location from where they need or want to operate.”
Lopez said that with the BOI there are no locational restrictions and companies could adopt WFH and hybrid work arrangements as they wish.
He encouraged companies to take their concerns on flexible working arrangement to the next administration in the next Congress.
Both legal counsels of PEZA and the Bureau of Internal Revenue are working on acceptable work arrangement that will still keep the incentives given to PEZA registered business enterprises. They are looking at 70-percent onsite and 30-percent WFH setup.
“We really want to support the BPO sector. That’s the reason why we extended WFH from December 2021 to October 2022,” Lopez said.
PEZA is continuing to push the hybrid workplace initiative to help IT and BPM companies optimize their operations in the Philippines.
Data showed that among the 1,733 locators inside the economic zones, 423 companies sought the institutionalization of the hybrid work program.
PEZA maintained that the 30-percent WFH is permissible activity under PEZA, CREATE and Telecommuting laws.
