Volume 3, Issue No. 35
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America and beyond . . . . . .
Our latest as of Monday, February 28, 2022
~ The Filipino Centre Toronto has publicized in December what it said was its "2020-2021 Annual Report". It's basically a reproduction of the results of an audit concluded in November by the accounting and auditing firm Yale PGC LLP. The spectacular thing about it is the detailed content that goes back to the three years before the non-profit emerged from the doldrums with the sale of its old building for $5.9 million, instantly making it a multi-millionaire The date of issue may be current but the nitty-gritty that has sparked calls for transparency is way past. Is this outright deception?
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THE 2020-2021 ANNUAL REPORT
Is FCT Pulling the Wool Over Our Eyes?
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“Guard yourself from lying; there is he who deceives and there is he who is deceived.” ―
That view has become more apparent after analyzing what the non-profit referred to in its website and in press releases as the "2020-2021 Annual Report".
The years 2020 and 2021 are more likely an allusion to when that report was prepared and made public, and not in what it contains. It's an update that's passé, actually three years behind the most relevant information and development in the organization.
Why? Because there's nothing there to show how FCT handled the millions of dollars it realized from the sale of its old building and the hundreds of thousands it received from grants. Those are the concerning and contentious issues relevant to widespread calls for openness.
FCT and its officers, I believe, are evidently pulling the wool over our eyes again. It's a very public attempt to trick the whistleblowers and concerned members and evade calls for accountability. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dWabOiCwhU)
At its basic, the report is misleading and disingenuous. It deceives, it hides the truth. It distracts public attention from the controversy FCT officers have generated by paying lip service to transparency. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZFXKzvQqYY).
Glancing the report from its website, it purports to show an update on the financial situation at FCT with this dubious - but looking current - title "2020-2021 Annual Report". (Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MDQoagXLlQ).
Well, it doesn't cover those years or the period from 2020 to 2021. Rather, it masks the same time frame with unexplained movements of assets and liabilities. Read further and you'd see that the dates are for the years 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Those annual reports do not address the concerns of the day involving huge payouts to previously-unheard monetary claimants. Neither do they clarify the reasons for supposedly upgrading facilities to the tune of at least a million dollars at its Scarborough home which FCT had acquired for $1.9 million.
As it looks now, FCT has just skipped discussion of how it is spending the $5.9-million proceeds from the sale of its old building on Parliament Street in downtown Toronto. (Related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2021/12/major-deficiencies-plague-filipino.html).
The FCT appears to have succeeded in diverting the attention of grumbling whistleblowers and concerned members from their main complaint - the payment of large sums to claimants who surfaced as promptly as when FCT got paid.
So far, the release of the "2020-2021 Annual Report" moment had the seeming effect of silencing the demands for transparency and accountability. Members should ask for an update, not a quick lesson in history. FCT should inform its members about the current state of affairs!
The financial situation of 2016, 2017, and 2018, while important, could have been easily appended to reports about FCT's performance in the years 2019, 2020, and 2021 because those are the years when FCT emerged from near-bankruptcy.
The sale of its "cockroach and mice-infested" two-story building on Parliament St. in downtown Toronto had fetched $5.9 million - a lot of money by all means - which seems to have choked its officers to such an extent they have become deaf-mute. (Related story: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2021/12/fct-brushes-off-audit-results.html).
So tight-lipped, in fact, that whenever they're asked for comment they just clam up, perhaps in the hope that the issue would fizzle out by their reticence.
For the record, FCT president Mary Ann San Juan and FCT chair Efren de Villa did not respond to questions emailed to them on February 23. Keeping silent when confronted with money issues is apparently a habit. (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).
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