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Our latest as of Friday, October 22, 2021
~ It's showtime for this multi-millionaire non-profit come November 14. Would Filipino Centre Toronto bare it all, or would it just go through the motions of having a gathering to placate members and whistleblowers insisting on an audit of the organization? The likelihood of a show is very much in the offing as could be gleaned from the agenda, which does not address the reasons for demands for transparency and accountability.
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Filipino Center Toronto Breaks Funereal Silence
CALLS MEMBERS TO A MEETING NEXT MONTH
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“A meeting consists of a group of people who have little to say - until after the meeting.”―
TORONTO - The Filipino Centre Toronto, the multi-millionaire non-profit embroiled in controversy with its members over money, appears to have somewhat softened its hardline stance with its call for a general meeting next month.
Given the funereal silence of FCT officials in the last three years at least, the planned gathering on November 14, 2021, at Burrows Hall Community Centre, 1081 Progress Ave., seems like a breakthrough of some sort. (Incidentally, why hold the meeting in another facility 3.4 kilometers away instead of at the FCT building?)
However, it's still early to say FCT is yielding to unrelenting pressure from within its ranks and from select media outlets to abide by its public avowal of transparency and accountability. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZFXKzvQqYY&t=1s).
That pressure, echoed many times over by whistleblowers and amplified by local media, is for FCT to submit to a third party independent audit of its finances for the years 2016, 2017, and 2018. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/search?q=filipino+centre+toronto).
Such an audit, according to knowledgeable sources, has been approved in 2018 by members in a member-motion procedure the FCT constitution provides but remains unimplemented. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2021/09/fct-officials-oppose-audit.html).
The scheduled meeting will consider five items in the agenda, the most notable of which are two, namely: one, the "Audited 2016, 2017 and 2018 Financial Statements" and two, "To pass an extraordinary resolution to not appoint an auditor and not to have an audit or a review engagement in respect of the 2021 financial year".
What FCT passes off as "audited" financial statements are actually those held in "review" only. sources explained. An audit is more thorough than a review as the former involves examination, verification, and analysis of documents. That's the main reason for the demand to have an independent third-party audit.
One of the major issues around which an audit revolves is the payment of $678,000 FCT made to money claimants soon after the organization sold its old building in downtown Toronto for $5.9 million.
The claimants and the amount of money paid were: "Vicki" (Dr. Victoria Santiago) - $300,000; "RCJ" (Rosalinda Cerudo Javier) - $96,000; "Felino" (Felino Javier) - $122,000; "CRA" (Canada Revenue Agency) - $122,000; "Wendy" (Wendy Arena) - $30,000; and "S and J Mechanicals" - $8,000.
FCT is supposedly run by volunteers. But when the $678,000 disbursement came out showing some of them were compensated, not a few members said they "felt sick to the stomach to learn that they are being paid".
"For a not-for-profit corporation like FCT," writer Cress Vasquez observed, "it seems odd that it can unload a large amount of cash without hesitation. But after selling its Toronto building for $5.9 million in January 2017, FCT directors have their milking cow".
Last month, Vasquez disclosed that FCT had made out cheque payments to Efren de Villa, FCT chairman; and board members Frank Cruzet and Philip Beloso. None of the three officials denied the claim by Vasquez who said he has canceled cheques as evidence that they received money from FCT.
Efren De Villa (no relation to Nenette de Villa, a board member; and Maria Corazon de Villa, a former member), Cruzet, and Beloso are "strongly against" the audit, according to Vasquez. And so are Mary Ann San Juan, president; and Theresa Lumanlan, chief financial officer, he said.
Vasquez believed Lumanlan "surely knows the dark secrets of FCT". He wrote: "She would likely know where dead bodies had been buried with regard to genuine or bogus vouchers, cash flows, repair and maintenance fixes, who got what and how much, and unreported taxes".
The agenda's Item #4 (To pass an extraordinary resolution to not appoint an auditor and not to have an audit or a review engagement in respect of the 2021 financial year) appears to be legally untenable. For it to be considered requires amending the FCT constitution, sources said.
"It is also wrong to publish the notice for an annual general meeting without providing the membership copies of the financials -- like before the members will not be given copies, but only a presentation,' sources explained. (Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved).
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