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Our latest as of Monday, December 20, 2021
~ Auditors have uncovered questionable practices at Filipino Centre Toronto, the community's multi-million non-profit that is currently under fire from whistleblowers and concerned members over large payouts to recently-emerged monetary claimants. All the while the results of an audit have been circulated exclusively to members at a meeting on November 14, not a word has trickled out of the boisterous mouths of its top officers, specifically the duo of Mary Ann San Juan, FCT president, and Efren de Villa, board chairman. A concerned member finally took up the cudgels for the public and published her report in two local newspapers.
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BY THIRD PARTY INDEPENDENT AUDIT
Auditors Uncover Irregularities at FCT
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“Shame on the misguided, the blinded, the distracted and the divided. Shame. You have allowed deceptive men to corrupt and desensitize your hearts and minds to unethically fuel their greed.” ―
TORONTO - An independent audit performed on Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT) appears to confirm members' lingering suspicion of irregularities in the multi-million non-profit organization.
Besides, it has found the FCT wanting in the handling of its financial affairs, and noted, among others, a disregard for sound accounting standards, and the existence of potential conflicts of interest among its officers.
For instance, hundreds of thousands of dollars categorized as "loans payable" purportedly went to unidentified past board members and chairman the total ($535,206 apparently) of which was not verified for lack of documentation.
"Never in FCT’s prior years’ financial statements were loans payable reported," said Maria CJ de Villa, a long-time FCT member who authored an article revealing the findings of the audit conducted by independent auditors at Yale PGC LLP.
Even as the results of the audit were divulged in 40-page documents handed to members during a general meeting on November 14, the FCT has not made any announcement about the event. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2021/10/showtime-at-embattled-filipino-centre.html).
Ms. de Villa's writeup, published last week in two Filipino tabloids, has not been challenged either by the auditors or by FCT and its officers. Neither was its contents questioned. (FCT chair Efren de Villa and FCT president Mary Ann San Juan have yet to respond to questions emailed to them last week).
In explaining the "loans payable" the auditors said: ". . . we are not able to determine the impact of these items on the opening and closing balance of the Centre’s deficit.”
Auditors at Yale PGC LLP have issued disclaimers accompanying their findings, to wit: “We do not express an opinion on the statement of operations and statement of cash flows of the Centre x x x we have not been able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion on these statements.’’
Issuance of such a disclaimer of opinion means the auditors could not complete their examination and verification of financial statements due to a lack of supporting documents from the FCT. Either FCT was negligent or it simply did not cooperate, loathing perhaps to disclose sensitive documents that could unravel secrets.
Ms. de Villa said the auditors' findings are contained in "a qualified audit report" covering the years 2016, 2017, and 2018. In all three years, she said, the auditors repeated the non-expression of opinion.
In her article, she emphasized FCT's mishandling of financial statements as "major accounting deficiencies". (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZFXKzvQqYY).
As a practical matter, the "deficiencies" are hints of irregularities called out for years by whistleblowers and concerned FCT members but remained unresolved. The latest audit simply confirmed this. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2021/10/fct-opens-its-mouth-with-warning-to.html).
A big question that remains unanswered is this one posed by Ms. de Villa: "Why after more than 10 years would FCT Board suddenly reveal massive payments and serious adjustments to its financial statements?"
FCT has so far gone through two audits. Earlier on, it hired SRCO Professional Corporation, a full-service public accounting and consulting firm established in 2010. Later, it contracted the services of Yale PGC LLP, an accounting and audit company founded in 1953.
But the clarity demanded by whistleblowers and concerned members to the so-called $678,000 payables that FCT had paid to claimants has not been addressed. (Related story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2021/09/fct-officials-oppose-audit.html).
"Neither engagements have shed light on the $678,000 questionable salaries, allowances, and legal costs that surfaced after the 2017 $5.9M sale of the Parliament (Street) building," Ms. de Villa wrote.
That structure in downtown Toronto had been depicted as "cockroach and mice-infested" yet it fetched such a sizeable amount that enabled FCT to purchase a new home (an old fixer-upper actually) and triggered an avalanche of money claims.
"For the last five years," Ms. de Villa stated, "concerned members have yet to see FCT publicly own or admit to mistakes they made, much less correct those mistakes" adverted to (but never explained) in 2019 by Dr. Nanette De Villa (no relation) who suggested laying them to rest.
Two years earlier, Rey Tolentino. then FCT chairman, stressed the need for an audit in a memorandum to board members on March 19, 2017. “What could happen if we simply do it the way we have been doing in the past, or the way we have been led to believe when it comes to these payables? Why is an audit of our large payables necessary?”
“The Board," he said, "is subject to questions of irregularity, impropriety or negligence if it cannot explain and justify the approval and processing of these large disbursements to the membership.”
Ms. de Villa credited concerned members for their determination to get at the bottom of the financial issues. "If not for their persistence and perseverance, the 2021 Third-Party Audit would not have happened".
"FCT’s non-compliant cash accounting system, weak financial controls, and flawed record-keeping would persist and would not have been officially flagged as a deficiency," she added. (Ms. de Villa's full story is at: https://www.atinitonews.com/2021/12/audit-confirms-fcts-major-accounting-deficiencies/).
(Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved).
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