Securities and Exchange Commission Chairperson Emilio B. Aquino and General Accountant Emmanuel Y. Artiza have been recognized by the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) for their contributions in upholding transparency and accountability as accountants in the government service.
Mr. Aquino was named as a Special Achievement Awardee in International Professional Involvement for his active participation in international affairs and programs that promote good governance and sustainability reporting.
Meanwhile, Mr. Artiza was hailed as a Special Achievement Awardee in Government Service for consistently promoting the highest standards in the accounting profession as general accountant of the SEC. The awards were conferred during PICPA’s 77th Annual National Convention Awards Night held on November 24 in Cebu City.
“We thank PICPA for promoting the role of the accounting profession in achieving transparency and accountability not just in the government service but also in the private practice. The SEC is proud to have its own pool of bright accountants who ensure compliance with both local and international standards among its supervised entities,” SEC Chairperson Emilio B. Aquino said.
“As regulator of the corporate sector, the SEC will continue to establish best practicestoward the sound and prudent use of public funds, as well work for the improvement of audit quality, in order to promote trust and confidence in the business community.”
Mr. Aquino is the first Certified Public Accountant and lawyer to serve as the SEC’s chairperson. Since the start of his term in 2018, the Commission has received unqualified opinions from the Commission on Audit on the fairness of presentation of its financial statements from 2018 to 2021. This is the longest streak of unqualified opinions that the SEC has received over the past decade.
In 2019, Mr. Aquino led the SEC in releasing Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for Publicly Listed Companies, in order to promote and jumpstart the process of reporting sustainable practices among the largest companies in the country.
Sustainability reports aim to enhance the quality of the private sector’s reporting on their contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and their usefulness in the monitoring of the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The Commission’s push toward compliance with sustainability reporting has been internationally recognized, as the SEC has received the ISAR Honours from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development for 2019 and 2021.
It was also at the start of Mr. Aquino’s term in 2018 that the SEC was admitted as a member of the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR), a global forum comprised of independent audit regulators that seeks to serve the public interest by enhancing audit oversight globally.
Meanwhile, the Commission published the very first SEC Oversight Assurance Review (SOAR) Public Inspection Report under Mr. Artiza’s guidance, as part of the SEC’s continuing commitment to high quality audits, which is important in boosting the confidence and trust of users of financial statements.
The report covers observations on audit quality during the first cycle of SOAR inspection from 2018 to 2021. It also highlights common inspection findings, common root causes of these findings and notable best practices of audit firms.
This year, the Commission also hosted for the first time the ASEAN Audit Regulators Group, which seeks to foster closer collaboration toward promoting audit quality across the region.
As General Accountant of the SEC, Mr. Artiza also serves as the Commission’s alternate representative to the Auditing and Assurance Standard Council and Financial Reporting Standards Council, as well as a member of the Philippine Interpretations Committee.
