The first directive President Duterte issued to his Cabinet secretaries and all other government agencies during his inaugural speech gave me the courage to write him a letter about the five-year-old application of Comteq Computer and Business College (a nonstock, nonprofit educational institution in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone) for a business permit.
The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has not issued Comteq’s business permit despite the fact that twice in a span of two years, SBMA’s chair, Roberto V. Garcia, has ordered Stefani Saño, SBMA senior deputy administrator, to regularize our operations; and despite the fact that our proposal was complete and that during all these years, we received no notice of deficiency relative to our application.
Our documents were only submitted to, and approved by, the SBMA board when Saño was under suspension by the Ombudsman. But when Saño was able to return to his position as senior deputy administrator, his office imposed an unreasonable condition for the school to pay five years of back rent as a prerequisite for the issuance of the SBMA permit.
We, therefore, seek the new President’s kind intervention, hoping that this injustice against our students will be stopped.
—ANSBERT B. JOAQUIN, former school director and administrator, Comteq Computer and Business College