New ways to do business

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

First a correction. Yesterday’s initials should be “DOJ” as we referred to the prosecutors of the Department of Justice and not the Department of Finance, or DOF. Our apologies. A slip perhaps, but I was not thinking of the prosecutor’s decisions are matters of finance.

A crisis always makes people creative, in fact, the Chinese character for crisis is danger and opportunity. The pandemic is a crisis in many lives especially those whose livelihood depended on commerce and private employment.

I am discussing business matters not because I am a businessman but because the alternative business styles coming out of the crisis is a historic phenomenon that could change the way people live and conduct business.

Weeks after we were forced to stay home, we received text messages and colorful photos of goods and foods for sale, a new style of advertising and business. The first proposal was whether we like suman and valenciana. Of course, we liked them and ordered. We had to pick them up or delivered with additional cost.

Soon more offerings came out of the internet, including my emails and more “notifications” came out and disrupting my work. It was easy to just skip them, but they are indeed a nuisance to my line of thought. Even YouTube is infested with ads. Anyway, one does not pay to see the movie or the documentaries. They are new ways of advertising.

Even the newspapers online have them inserted between the text. Some newspapers give a ticker and then say, “if you want to read more, subscribe”. Fair enough because they are very current, they are delivered right into your room and no paper to dispose of.

In our subdivision, delivery boys in motorcycles come more often than ever before. They first came for pizza deliveries, now they deliver complete meals. People see the food offering on their cellphones or whatever and merely place an order. It saves time and travel and gives more choices for a meal or snack and free us from messing in the kitchen.

There is another way that I did not know until the news came out that Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said that online bartering is being conducted without paying taxes and therefore the scheme is in violation of the country’s tax law. Lopez added that barter is only allowed in some parts of Mindanao, such as Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

I did not know that a person cannot barter and there is a law imposing taxes on bartering my shoes with a farmer’s basket of vegetables. I cannot imagine how the government can tax this very fluid form of exchanging goods.

Until the report came out, I did not know that a lot of people have resorted to the ancient transactions of exchanging goods. It seems that the quarantine and the massive dismissal of workers and closure of hundreds of businesses have forced people to resort to bartering to survive or to secure goods.

In bartering, parties agree to exchange for goods or services, with no money involved. Where will the government come in? This is not the kind of barter trade in Mindanao.

The report said that former Bacolod City councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue started the Bacolod Barter Community Facebook page in May and she cried foul with the threat of Lopez saying many Filipinos have relied on bartering to acquire food and goods during the lockdown. Perhaps she should ask what Lopez did to get food to people while they could not get out of their homes, stores were closed, and money was scarce.

In a Facebook query, Sigue, a lawyer, asked Lopez to “kindly formally meet the more than 150 bartering communities around the country including the overseas bartering communities providing help and food for our Filipino citizens abroad.”

She also cited that bartering is recognized by the Civil Code of the Philippines (1950) and cannot be a violation of any law.

The Bacolod Barter Community has reportedly more than 230,000 members and has influenced other localities to create their own community. The items involved are old clothes in exchange for one kilo of rice, an old pair of shoes for canned goods, a tray of eggs for a pot of plant, a defective cellphone in exchange for an old laptop, vegetables for a wheelchair, etc.

Let Lopez match that instead of ranting.