PCL, Liga compelled: Submit Panagbenga financial statements
>> Wednesday, January 2, 2019
By Dexter A. See
BAGUIO
CITY – Officers of the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI) urged
the Philippine Councilors League (PCL) and Liga ng mga Barangay (LMB) Baguio
City chapters to submit to the local government’s finance committee their
audited financial statements governing funds said groups received and gained
from operating part of the week-long Session Road in Bloom and the extension of
the month-long Baguio Blooms Exposition and Exhibition, respectively, of last
year’s 23rd edition of the Panagbenga Festival.
Freddie Alquiros, member
of the foundation and Panagbenga organizing committee, said the BFFFI submitted
its financial statement to the local government’s finance committee pursuant to
rules imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
He said based on SEC
guidelines, the end of their calendar year June of each year that covers the
period of the flower festival, thus, the preparation and audit of the financial
statement has to go to a process aside from the fact that the foundation did
not yet return to the organizer of the Baguio Blooms Exhibition and Exposition
the P850,000 bond that was paid because of the alleged failure of the organizer
to secure the necessary clearance from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
Alquiros added, to
remedy the situation and not delay
submission of the BFFFI’s financial statement to the local government, the
amount was instead deposited in escrow until such time that the organizer will
secure the necessary BIR clearance that will allow for the submission of the
required financial statement to the local government’s finance committee
Anthony de Leon,
co-chairman of the Panagbenga POC and general manager of the Baguio Country
Club (BCC), claimed the foundation never incurred deficiencies in their submission
of said financial statements with the SEC and this is proven by the clearances
given by the BIR that shows their sustained adherence to the government’s
transparency and accountability program.
Both BFFFI officers said
the PCL and LMB chapters must also adhere to the similar policy by submitting
their own financial statements on how the funds that accrued to the two groups
from the proceeds of partly managing a portion of the Session Road in Bloom and
the extension of the Baguio Blooms Exposition and Exhibition were used.
BFFFI is supposed to be
tax-exempt but Alquiros claimed that because of the tedious process in securing
the tax exemption certificate due to previous controversies involving pork
barrel funds being channeled to foundations allegedly used as conduits for
questionable projects, the foundation continuous to pay the taxes from
whatever income it generates from the staging of the festival events.
For this year, BFFFI
paid to the BIR over P1.1 million in taxes from the income it earned from the
2018 edition of the flower festival.
The PCL and LMB Baguio
chapters were supposed to have used the funds coursed through them for the
implementation of their various civic projects for the welfare of their
members, among others.
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