October 18, 2018

Good morning and welcome to the _____________________. I’m so pleased to

have the opportunity to welcome you all here today. We have an amazing event
planned for you and I am thrilled to share this time with you. Our organizations has
been working hard to pull this together and we hope you are looking forward to this
as much as much as we are.

It’s an exciting time for our Profession, as you all know we are facing a time of
remarkable change, great challenges and exciting opportunity. The programs and
policies being charted, by the current administration such as the Build, Build, Build
initiative - provides opportune times for us in the Accounting, Tax Collection, and
Commerce Profession/Industry.

Our sector is the catalyst for the realization of the said initiative because we generate
the funds and capital for such big and ambitious projects, now and in the future as
well. The fluid collaboration of our respective groups equates to the sustainability of
the various government projects and functions, thus we bear great responsibilities
upon our shoulders and we shall not fail in this regards.

Tax Collection in our country is onerous on the part of the tax collecting agencies of
the government such as BIR and BOC (Customs) because the nature of our taxation
system is voluntary. It is therefore, the job of the Accountants to compute the correct
payable taxes of the taxpayers so that these government agencies would be able to
collect properly.

Of course, the Commerce Industry is the source of the income and capital from
which taxes are derived from, it is from that income and/or capital where we draw
and exact the appropriate tax for the funds of the government.

Enforcement of Taxation Procedures and Remedies remains the most difficult

undertaking on the part of the Tax Collecting Agencies, measures such as OPLAN
KANDADO and TAX MAPPING has empirically increased the annual collection of
these agencies. However, balancing between collection targets/quota and giving room
for businesses to grow remains tricky, in this endeavour we should provide assistance
to the government.

In view of this, The BIR, PCCI – Eastern Visayas, Tacloban Banker’s Association, and
PICPA Tacloban Chapter entered into a Memorandum of Agreement, setting forth the
guidelines to improved collaboration among the parties involved. In this MOA, the
responsibilities tasked upon PICPA Tacloban Chapter are the following:
1. Provide resource persons, free of charge, in the conduct of basic accounting
seminars or similar learning activities;

2. Extend help, free of charge, in educating full-time bookkeepers and accountants

employed by the SMEs about basic, standard, and proper bookkeeping and
accounting procedures. The professional services hall however exclude
 professional engagement covered by an engagement in accordance with
applicable professional standards; and

3. Conduct relevant seminars for tax practitioners on any updates on tax laws, rules
and regulations.
Thus, with our own little contribution above, this endeavour would mean that the
PICPA Tacloban Chapter thru its able members, our professional accountants, will
commit with pride to accomplish our role as key partner in nation-building, from now
and in the future!

I believe that this relationship with the BIR, the PICC, and the Bankers Association is
going to go deeper and will become more engaged as we go forward!
Thank you.