MANILA — The Quezon City government will soon issue a prescribed minimum standard of business operation of sellers of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) once an ordinance for such purpose is enacted.
The ordinance, SP 2677-2018, authored by 2nd District councilor Precious Hipolito-Castelo was approved by the Quezon City Council on the 3rd and final reading last week.
The ordinance is anchored on Republic Act 8479, or the “Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998”, which covers “any person or entity, whether natural or juridical, engaged in exporting, refilling, transporting, marketing, and/or selling of LPG to end users and other consumers.”
“The continued operation of unsafe and sub-standard LPG retail outlets may expose the public to fire, health and environmental risks, deprive the public the proper quality and quantity of the LPG as purchased, legitimate retailers may not be able to avail of additional sales volume, the city government will not be able to garner additional revenues from licensing fees, local business taxes, and, in effect, will encourage the marketing of LPG from illegal activities,” the ordinance reads.
The ordinance prescribes a minimum standard of operation for the LPG industry to eliminate nefarious practices in transporting and selling of LPG to protect consumers and legitimate LPG retailers from danger and fraud.
Under Section 7, the ordinance states that “there shall be a requirement to put up prescribed signage, which shall be displayed by the operators of the LPG establishments in strategic locations within the premises of the said establishments.”
A price display board shall contain the updated prices for each LPG brand and shall have numeric entries at least six inches in height.
There shall be “No Smoking” signs, “Special Use Permit” issued by the city shall be displayed, and other safety signs must be present.
The operators shall suffer penalties for failure to comply with the necessary requirements.
For the first offense of wholesalers, a PHP3,000 fine shall be imposed and for the second offense, a PHP5,000 and revocation of business and special use permit.
For the first offense of retailers, violators shall suffer a PHP1,500 fine while PHP3,000 is the penalty for the second offense plus revocation of business permit.
The local measure has been forwarded to the Office of the City Mayor for signature to be enacted. (Perfecto Raymundo, Jr./PNA)
