Dormitory, Boarding House, Apartment Must Secure Business Permit

The city government has called on all dormitories here to secure business permits at city hall before they can rent out rooms or accommodate borders.

City Administrator Antonio Orendain Jr. said the license requirement should also cover homes that offer rooms for rent to students in Zamboanga.

Orendain warned that students staying in unlicensed dormitories may be evicted if it is discovered that these buildings are not covered by proper document.

He said that owners of apartments, dormitories or homes that offer temporary sources of income may lose money if they do not secure licenses for their operations and their homes or apartments will be padlocked by the city government.

Zamboanga City is the center of education in the Peninsula with several big universities and colleges catering to students from the island provinces such as Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Thousands of students from these island provinces and the three Zamboanga provinces -- Del Norte, Del Sur and Sibugay -- also go to Zamboanga for their college degrees.

The Western Mindanao State University (former Zamboanga Normal School), the Zamboanga City Polytechnic Colleges (former Regional School of Arts and Trades) and the Zamboanga Regional School of Fisheries are government educational institutions that provide college education at lower costs.

Aside from these government schools, there are also about a dozen colleges that offer several bachelor courses as well as short term vocational courses to students from the region.

The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) also offers cheap or subsidized training, mostly on manual skills courses, including language courses for other colleges graduates who want to shift from white collar courses to blue collar jobs.

Since these out of town students seldom have relatives in Zamboanga, they end up staying in dormitories or boarding houses in this city.

Orendain said these boarding houses must comply with all the requirements from the City Health Office such as comfort rooms and kitchen areas.