PICPA Foundation spearheads Green Project

VISITORS will soon be seeing a greener Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) national office in Mandaluyong City as PICPA Foundation held a hoisting ceremony for its latest community development project.

The hoisting ceremony involved raising dapo ferns over branches of the existing balete tree. With the slogan “PICPANS Be Counted! Let’s Turn Our Green Dreams to Reality”, the project aims to green the PICPA National Office by incorporating classy, vintage ornamental plants and eventually edible plants to the otherwise concrete surroundings of the PICPA building.

Support from PICPA members will come from donations for naming rights in the different gardens that will rise in various areas of the compound: healing garden, wall garden, hanging garden, box garden and hedge garden.

The project which is aligned with the ESG standards for an organizations behavior where E stands for Environment, S for Social, and G for Governance symbolizes PICPA’s commitment to environment stewardship and sustainability.  “We are now mindful of the environmental impact of our business,” PICPA National President Atty. Blanza said.

According to PICPA Foundation Chair Dr. Erwin Alcala, the Foundation wants to turn the national office into a green home for CPAs. “We do a lot of tasks inside the office, we use computers, we use cell phones, and these actually are contributors to pollution.  At least with a green home, it can contribute a little to the clean air that is required by CPAs visiting our headquarters.”

Dr. Alcala added that eventually they want the different chapters to replicate what they are doing at the national headquarters. “We do it here first. We are launching it here for everybody to understand the purpose of this project.”

In attendance were officers of PICPA Foundation led by Dr. Erwin Vincent G. Alcala, PICPA Foundation Chairman of the Board; Dr. Noe Quiñanola, Chairman of the Board of Accountancy, Atty. Randy B. Blanza, PICPA National President, Ms. Lolita P. Tang, PICPA Foundation Executive Director and Ms. Florencia Gorospe, Chairperson of PICPA Foundation Community Development Support Committee. Also present joining the ceremony were Chairman/Managing Partners of leading & trusted professional services firms in the Philippines the SGV & Co; Villaruz, Villaruz& Co. CPAs; Moore Roxas Tabamo & Co; and Torre, Sobremonte & Associates Company; representatives from PICPA’s chapters in the National Capital Region sectors and former Undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, Ms. Evelyn Laviña who gave a brief background of the concept and implementation of the greening project..

The PICPA Foundation was established on December 29, 1981 with the primary purpose of pursuing research and development programs to assess the impact of paradigm shifts in business and technological advances in all areas of the accountancy profession. It is PICPA’s socio-civic arm.

Prior to the establishment of the Foundation, CSR programs were under a committee in the PICPA but with the increased CSR activities a separate entity was needed.The greening of the PICPA national office is one of the CSR projects under the community development/outreach program of the Foundation.

The Foundation likewise has programs on research and development, professional development, and scholarship. These programs seek to address the two major concern of the accountancy profession—attractiveness and retention.

“Our profession has a lot of problems.  One is the decline in the attractiveness of the profession. There’s a decrease in enrolment in the accountancy program, that’s a concern of PICPA. We need to know the reasons why. The PICPA Foundation commissioned researchers to look into this problem,” said Dr. Alcala, PICPA Foundation Chair for 2023-2024. He further noted that there is an increasing demand for accountants because “we have very low supply of CPAs”.

Add to this is the fact that not all CPA passers work in the Philippines whileothers do not work in accounting-related fields.

According to Atty. Blanza, PICPA works together with the Foundation to address the concerns.

“We offer free seminars, we go to schools—school visits to also encourage them on the beauty of the accountancy profession and also for us to get inputs on what the challenges are so that the PICPA can come in and offer its help.”

He added it is part of the 10-point agenda of PICPA to reach out to schools. “Before we go to accountancy students but now we also try to reach out even to those senior high school [students] especially in the ABM strand.”

PICPA Foundation supports 30-40 scholars who are pursuing accountancy degree annually, provides assistance to accountancy schools in terms of facilities, and pay for review fees of qualified applicants preparing for the licensure examinations.

PICPA has 84 chapters nationwide with around 42,000 active members.