Transparency is the best policy

By Eunice C. Abdon-Roces (The Philippine Star), Apr. 19, 2016

On March 18, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) soft-launched the SEC Express Nationwide Submission otherwise known as SENS. The SENS, as mentioned under SEC Memorandum Circular No. 1-2016, is one of the options available to corporations involving the non-appearance submission of SEC documents such as general information sheet (GIS) and audited financial statements (AFS) as required by the agency annually. The system is designed to strengthen the collection of financial reports which would require all corporations lawfully doing business in the Philippines to become more transparent in their corporate books. For the past years there have been problems encountered by the agency regarding several types of companies who do not file their financial reports, and a perceived issue contributing to this problem has been the tedious requirement by the SEC of personally submitting the financial reports.

Annual company filing is important to make sure information is made available immediately to investors. The SEC is imposing strict implementation of rules in disclosure and accountability to keep up corporate good governance and to improve disclosure content by reducing the disclosures to those that clearly communicate the information that is most important to the users of the financial statements. The imposition by the SEC to comply with the reportorial and monitoring requirements of Corporations plays a significant role in ensuring transparency among our public corporations.

Section 141 of the Corporation Code of the Philippines requires a corporation, lawfully doing business in the Philippines, to submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission an annual report of its operations, together with a financial statement of its assets and liabilities, certified by any independent certified public accountant in appropriate cases, covering the preceding fiscal year and such other requirements as the SEC may require. Such report shall be submitted within such period as may be prescribed by the SEC. As a result of this requirement, voluminous annual corporate reports are being submitted to the SEC every year.

The SEC is now providing a solution to manage the submission of the growing amount of annual reports consisting of audited financial statement stamped received by the BIR and the General Information Sheet without the need to personally submit the said documents. In this way, the documents may be incorporated flawlessly with the SEC process in a more convenient approach in compliance with the annual reportorial requirements of corporations.

Now, submission of a company’s general information sheet and/or audited financial statements stamped “received” by the Bureau of Internal Revenue can be done without going to the Securities and Exchange Commission personally. The said documents may be brought by the company to a courier of their choice for submission to SEC. For filers who need a return copy of their documents stamped “received” by the SEC, they can proceed to the nearest designated courier.

The documents will be received by the SEC within four (4) business days after submitting to any participating Air 21 branch. The amount to be paid for the service will vary depending on the area of preferred delivery address. The total amount will cover the processing fee and delivery fee of documents to the SEC and to the client’s given delivery address. Air 21 will also handle the delivery of the return copy.

The SENS allows filers an additional submission option to the SEC’s standard procedures, whereby filers can simply send their documents to the SEC through a designated courier or courier of their choice instead of submitting these personally at SEC office and/or satellite offices.

Below is the step-by-step process for using SENS when submitting documents to the SEC:

1. Log on to www.secexpress.ph/sens

2. Accomplish, print and sign the SENS form, checklist and undertaking. Enclose these documents with the reports to be filed with the SEC in one envelope.

3. Filers who do not require a return copy of the document submissions may proceed to the nearest courier office of their choice and pay the courier fee.

4. Filers who require a return copy of their document submissions may proceed to the designated SENS courier and pay the service/ courier fees. A list of designated SENS Couriers is available at
www.secexpress.ph/sens for your reference.

5. For inquiries please contact 737-8888

Please note the date of filing of the required documents, however, will be the date when the SEC actually receives the documents from the concerned courier, and not when the courier received the documents from the concerned corporation. Hence, there may be some issues with regard the couriers’ delivery time, in relation to the date that corporations actually expect the documents to be received by the SEC.

With the goal of promoting transparency and ensuring accountability among companies, businesses are enjoined under the Corporation Code to keep books and records of all their business transactions and to file annual reports and audited financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The observance and submission of the reportorial requirements as prescribed is an inherent obligation imposed on any business venture or undertaking. Thus, it is expected that these companies strive to keep its utmost compliance with such requirements as it seeks ultimately to afford protection and assurance to its investing public.