THE Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC) will continue to function as a foundation duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) even with the resignation of five members of its board of trustees.
“Resignation doesn’t dissolve the CIPC. Its operations may stall but what is urgent now is that the board be constituted,” said Sabino Dapat, a CIPC treasurer and one of five officials who resigned from the center.
Four others led by former chairman Geronimo Sta. Ana, vice chairman Augusto Go and Roger Lim resigned last June.
“The five board members resigned before SEC because we don’t know who to give our resignation letter to,” Dapat said.
In a radio interview, Dapat said CIPC managing director Joel Marie Yu only needed to call for a meeting of its stakeholders so an election could be held to fill up the vacancies in the board of trustees.
CIPC is now left with only Yu and Provincial Director Aster Caberte of the Department of Trade and Industry on the board of trustees.
Yu, who is in the US to attend to a family concern, could not be reached for comment.
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama earlier said he doesn’t intend to dissolve CIPC.
But he said he couldn’t release the city’s 2013 assistance of P5.4 million unless the board members are able to settle their “internal conflict.”
Rama is set to meet with Sta. Ana anytime to discuss CIPC’s operations and their resignation.
Former mayor and south district congressman Tomas Osmeña said he considered Rama as the CIPC’s problem because the mayor’s refusal to release the P5.4 million aid made it difficult for the CIPC to operate.
This forced the five trustees to resign last June, Osmeña said. Dapat said their resignation resulted from a “combination” of reasons which include politics.
“Mayor Mike Rama is right in saying that CIPC should have a board of directors that is a policy making body,” he said.
Without elaborating, Dapat said, there were instances when Yu decided on his own.
“All of us (also) opposed in using CIPC to market the SRP. That is not our purpose as provided for in our articles of incorporation, to sell real estate like the SRP. Our purpose is to promote investment,” he said.
Dapat said it is their marketing of Cebu that enable them to receive financial assistance from Mandaue City, Lapu Lapu City and the province.
Dapat recalled an instance where CIPC found it difficult to receive aid from the city because of opposition by the Commission on Audit (COA).
COA said then there was conflict of interest in the city’s allocation of aid to the CIPC because then mayor Tomas Osmeña, one of the CIPC incorporators, was also a stockholder.
Dapat said Osmeña had to leave CIPC to prevent audit problems.
Dapat said the CIPC submits a liquidation of the financial aid it receives from donors to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
Local government units (LGUs) are also furnished with a report of their fund on how their aid was used.
Osmeña said the CIPC was issued a certification by the city accounting office after liquidation of its 2012 assistance from the city government, an indication that liquidation was never a problem for the foundation.