TIBURCIO TANCINCO MEMORIAL INSTITUTE

OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Calbayog City

GRADUATE SCHOOL AND TRAINING ACADEMY

Subject: Budget Preparation and Fiscal Management

Professor: Dr. Socorro O. Bohol

Student: Donald M. Patimo, MPM

Date: November 5, 2008

REACTION PAPER FOR MR. FRANK DETOSIL’S LECTURE

Last October 18, 2008, Mr. Frank Detosil, a certified

public accountant, delivered a lecture in our class in budget

preparation and fiscal management. He presented to the class

important discussions with regards to the basic concepts of

accounting in business and government. He defined accounting

as the art and science of recording, classifying, summarizing,

and interpreting financial data. He also introduced to the

class the New Government Accounting System (NGAS). According

to him, NGAS is designed to simplify government accounting,

improve the efficiency of monitoring public sector

performance, and increase the transparency of government

audits through civil society involvement.

Furthermore, Mr. Detosil presented personal observations

with regards to business and government accounting for the

class to react. According to him, local government units are

very dependent to its Internal Revenue Allocation (IRA) and

pay less attention on strategies to generate income. In terms

of budgeting, he considered government agencies focused more

on the expenditures while business organizations are focused

on the initiation and implementation of strategies to earn

income. Another valid observation which he presented is on the

fact that even there are so many rules, regulations, and law

in the government, there are still so many anomalies that

happened.

I personally appreciate to know the point of view of an

accountant in the budget preparation and fiscal management.

Accountants are like ship navigators that don’t dictates the

direction where the ship go but its role is to make sure that

the ship will land safely on its destination. In his

presentation about the NGAS, he failed to include the current

gradual conversion of the NGAS into e-NGAS, which is from

manual NGAS into computerized or electronic NGAS. The

electronic NGAS shall make government accounting more

simplified, more improved efficiency of monitoring public

sector performance, and more transparent government audits.