COA flags cash assistance to national sports associations that remain unliquidated for 27 years
State auditors have put the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) to task for providing financial assistance to several national sports associations (NSAs) that have remained unliquidated for as long as 27 years.
Some of these NSAs have already disbanded or changed names.
The Commission on Audit (COA) also observed other deficiencies with NSAs, such as unauthorized disbursements, delayed submissions of liquidation reports, and non-compliance with documentary requirements.
From 1997 to 2023, the NSAs were given P295.5 million in financial assistance, the auditors said in their 2023 audit report on the PSC. But these disbursements were not in compliance with the PSC rules and the joint affidavit of undertaking with the NSA grantees.
“The non-submission of liquidation reports by the NSAs resulted in the non-recognition of expenditures incurred out of the financial assistance during the applicable accounting period,” the auditors said in their report.
They said that the P295.5 million remained unliquidated for 27 years.
Moreover, the audit report for the calendar year 2022 indicated that the PSC had receivables that were past due amounting to P242 million. Out of this amount, P23.2 million was due to receivables from 22 NSAs or NGOs that have either dissolved or disbanded.
From 2003 to 2011, the Philippine Volleyball Federation received the most unliquidated financial assistance, amounting to over P5.6 million, followed by Larong Volleyball sa Pilipinas, Inc., which has P3 million in unliquidated cash assistance covering the calendar years 2017 to 2019.
Other concerned NSAs are the Larong Volleyball sa Pilipinas, Inc., P3 million; Billiard & Snooker Congress of the Philippines, P262,256.79; Philippine Chess Federation, P505,910; Philippine Cycling Federation Freysler Regalado, P2.7 million; PhilCycling, P1.68 million; Philippine Amateur Judo Federation, P1.1 million; Philippine Karatedo Federation, P1.2 million; Philippine Karatedo Federation-NSA, Inc., P924,390.78; Philippine Aquatic Sports Association, P436,680; Table Tennis Association of the Philippines, P1.2 million; Philippine Weightlifting Association, 1.8 million; Philippine University Games Corp., P500,000; Philippine Integrated Combat Arnis Federation, P194,605.28; and the NCR Athletic Association Inc., P500,000.
Legal remedies
Auditors have recommended that the PSC should direct its legal affairs to force all NSAs to liquidate these disbursed amounts, otherwise financial assistance to existing NSAs will be suspended or disallowed.
The COA instructed the PSC to either explore other possible avenues or use available legal remedies to immediately liquidate and collect past-due receivables, which the PSC has agreed to do.
Another observation raised by COA was the deficiencies, such as the PSC’s approval of NSA’s unauthorized disbursements, incomplete supporting documents and delayed submission of their liquidation reports, ranging from six to 752 days.
COA also revealed that the PSC granted P1.6 billion to various sports associations from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 2023.
