Analysis: NSAs lack commitment, integrity

LONDON – The most common infraction of NSA officials in the Philippines is graft, or misuse of public funds, because these organizations are informal one-man associations that don’t have established accounting and auditing systems that ensure that funds they get from the public and private sector are fully accounted for.

Reports from the Commission on Audit show that almost all NSAs that draw funds from the Philippine Sports Commission, with the exception of a very few associations like athletics, basketball, boxing, golf, triathlon and taekwondo are delinquent in their liquidation of advances from the government agency.

Some of the advances date back to as far as 10 years. Some of the accountable officials have resigned or died.

Government policy requires that advances should be liquidated two weeks after the completion of the event, otherwise those accountable face graft charges before the Ombudsman. As of two years ago, over P120 million in cash advances remains unliquidated, and this includes P80 million disbursed by the Manila SEA Games Organizing Committee for the 2005 SEA Games.

Sports officials, including former PSC officials, are now facing graft charges with the Ombudsman.

While NSAs contend that they had already liquidated their advances, the COA reports indicate many of these liquidations are not acceptable either because the expenses are not authorized or are bloated or simply are not backed by receipts and other documents.

Money is the root of all evil, and certainly this is the root of the great social evils facing Philippine sports – corruptive practices that drain the association of funds, resulting in their sport’s poor performance in international competitions.

To allow NSAs to start with a clean slate under the Aquino administration, the Philippine Sports Commission announced a plan to declare amnesty for all NSAs. The PSC chairman was lucky he did not pursue his plan because he doesn’t have the constitutional mandate to do so.

Actually he did by not filing graft charges against the offenders. That, in effect, is amnesty cloaked in other terms. With the PSC not doing its job as fiscalizer, anomalies will remain unpunished over the next four years of the Aquino administration.

Lucky enough, some militant groups in the private sector have filed cases against erring sports officials, most recently those in the Phillippine Amusements and Gaming Corporation and the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association.

Sometime three years ago, the Philippine Olympic Committee announced it had engaged the services of Sycip, Gorres and Velayo, Asia’s biggest and most respected auditing and financial management firm, to straighten out the financial mess besieging NSAs.

Nothing came out of it. An auditing firm cannot examine the books of an NSA because there are no records available. An external auditor cannot affix his signature to a financial report riddled with inconsistencies under pain of losing his CPA (certified public acountant) license and facing criminal charges for collusion.

An association doesn’t really have to have a formal setup to ensure proper accounting of funds. It only requires honesty and integrity. Some of the officials who don’t serve their organizations for the “funds” of it can be counted by the fingers and they are, usually, the best-performing NSAs.

(To be continued)