The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has warned businesses that use foreign characters as their business names of facing sanctions.
Welson Paz, DTI specialist said foreign characters are not registrable under business name law.
Paz issued the warning amid the growing number of establishments with signages written in foreign characters proliferating in Puerto Princesa City.
Paz said their national office will soon issue a Department Administrative Order (DAO) regarding the use of Filipino or English language in signages, billboards, advertisements, brochures, fliers, notices, advisories, labels, price tags, price lists, menus, receipts, and other business or marketing materials.
“’Yong foreign characters ay hindi registrable sa DTI, sabihin natin na Korean characters o Chinese characters or any foreign characters na nasa language nila, hindi siya registrable under sa ating Business Name Law. Ibig sabihin yong pwede lang ay Tagalog at English characters, yon ang dapat natin i-rehistro na business name,” Paz said Wednesday.
He said registered business names must appear on the establishment signages.
Business owners can also use foreign characters provided that there is also “a translation of the written word regardless of the position,” he said.
He added that the corresponding translation should be both or either in Filipino or English.
“We will call the attention of the establishments that will not put the approved trade name. Sanctions will also be implemented once the order is released,” Paz said.
In Puerto Princesa City, Paz said there are four to five establishments with foreign characters in trade names.
We also noticed similar cases in El Nido and Coron but translations were provided in the businesses, he added.
“Based doon sa ating monitoring, meron naman silang proper documents. Hihintayin natin yong department order na ma-approve pero yong sa business names, kung makita natin na foreign characters lang ang nakalagay at wala yong approve mismo na business names, automatic yan ay pwede natin isyuhan ng notice of violation,” Paz said.
Earlier, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) raised concerns whether the Korean and Chinese establishments in the city and those out of town are registered business names with the DTI.
The BIR could not also match the revenue reports of the establishments with the printed characters written in foreign characters that could not be reached.
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