GROs go guerilla in Tabuk City

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) member Sandra Mejia here has called upon the barangay officials and residents of barangays Casigayan and Dagupan Centro to enforce their prohibition against guest relations officers (GROs) from working in the their territories.
She sounded the call amidst information that some GROs who were displaced when the two barangays stopped the operation of the videokes are now operating guerilla type by posing as mere waitresses in their former establishments and picking up customers on their own.
Mejia said that if the information is true, then the problem has become more complicated as the city can no longer check on the health of the GROs. Under city ordinance, GROs cannot serve customers if they do not have pink cards which they obtain after subjecting themselves to medical examination in the rural health units of the city.
She said that the act of the two barangays banning GROs from working in their barangays which is laudable will be for naught if the GROs could ply their trade clandestinely in the two barangays.
Councilor Faustino Teckney who chairs the committee on rules of the SP said that if the information on the GROs going underground is true, then there is a need for the LGU to deploy an exclusive task force to enforce the ban on the GROs .
Dagupan Centro Barangay Captain Castor Cayaba said that in not issuing clearances to the videoke bars in the barangay, they were only granting the old petition of the residents living near the night establishments who complained of sleepless nights due to sound from the bars, fights among customers, marital conflict and the practice of the bar girls of wearing skimpy clothes in public.
Cayaba clarified that they are still issuing clearances to these establishments but these expressly prohibits the employment of GROs by the videoke bars.
Nelson Dapasen, barangay chief of Casigayan, informed that they closed the lone videoke bar operating in the barangay because it was situated near a school and a church.
Dagupan Weste Barangay Captain Antonio Bonilla said that he had already issued barangay clearances to all three establishments when he received the complaints against videoke bars in the barangay.
On the other hand, Magsaysay Barangay Captain Benito Caysuen said that only one of the four videoke bars operating in the barangay has clearance from his office. A source at the City Treasury, however, insisted that they do not issue business permits unless they are attached with a barangay clearance.
Both Caysoen and Bonilla promised they will no longer issue barangay clearances to establishments employing GROs or bar girls come 2012.
Revenue Collection Clerk Pierre Galicia who heads the existing task force implementing regulations on videoke bars said that his group cannot keep watch over establishments on a 24-hour basis as they are undermanned.
He said that last year, they closed all the videoke bars in the city for various violations but that this year, the establishments have so far been complying.
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