ShareThisMANILA– A Quezon City lawmaker has called for a congressional inquiry into the alleged P59-billion financial losses incurred by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in 2010.
Rep. Winston Castelo, author of proposed House Resolution 1450, said a congressional inquiry should be conducted to determine why the BSP has incurred financial losses vis-a-vis its apparent failure to settle with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) its P6-billion obligations to the government.
Castelo said there are reports that BSP had incurred P59 billion in financial losses last year while negotiating to pay back taxes at rates lower than the income tax assessment determined by the BIR under a resultant proposed P6 billion package settlement agreement.
Citing reports, the Quezon City solon said the BSP allegedly has deficiency income tax assessments on realized gains from gold trading, net realized gains on foreign exchange transactions-managed funds, interest expense and arbitrage and unreported income from other capital reserves.
The total, including interest and penalties, reached P11.9 billion for 2005 and P7 billion for 2006.
“BSP is created as the country’s central monetary authority and as such, it is only axiomatic that it is in charge of financial, monetary and fiscal problems that arise internally or externally which would impact on the national economy,” he said.
Castelo called on the House committee on banks and financial intermediaries “to look into the matter to identify what has inflicted unto the BSP this serious injury and summon the members of the Monetary Board to shed light on the matter.”
He said two issues should be resolved by the BSP — its moral ascendancy over the entire banking system borne out of its supervisory role; and its institutional responsibility to allow income taxes to accrue to the government out of its own operations over the country’s capital reserves.
“These weaknesses albeit threats maybe symptomatic of the fact that BSP might be under siege, strain and stress as it does not measure up to the demands and challenges in the monetary environment and that it is important to identify what has inflicted unto BSP this serious injury,” he said.