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Philippine Tax Academy gets first president
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Gil Beltran is a Department of Finance undersecretary and its chief economist
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He will serve until June 30; his subsequent reappointment will be up to the next administration
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Retired Finance assistant secretary Ma. Teresa Habitan has also appointed PTA chancellor
Finance undersecretary and chief economist Gil Beltran has been elected as the first president of the Philippine Tax Academy (PTA).
Beltran was voted unanimously by the PTA Board of Trustees, the Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement dated May 3.
Beltran will serve until June 30, when President Rodrigo Duterte’s term ends. But his subsequent reappointment will be up to the next administration.
Retired DOF assistant secretary Ma. Teresa Habitan was also appointed as chancellor of the PTA.
Beltran was first appointed by Duterte as a member of the PTA Board of Trustees representing the academe on January 18.
Prior to his appointment as PTA president, he was the DOF undersecretary for the Policy Development and Management Services Group.
Beltran had also served previously as an undersecretary for DOF’s Corporate Affairs Group and Privatization Office.
Earlier in his career, Beltran was seconded to the World Bank, serving in various positions including as alternate executive director (January 2003-January 2005), advisor to the executive director (February- May 1995 and August-November 1990), and as secretary of the Intergovernmental Committee of the Group of 24 at the International Monetary and Financial Affairs Bureau in Washington, DC.
Beltran was also a visiting lecturer at the University of the Philippines and a lecturer at the Development Academy of the Philippines.
Habitan, who will serve as one of three chancellors of the PTA, had been the assistant secretary for the DOF’s Domestic Finance Group, where she was responsible for fiscal policy formulation and fiscal planning.
She also worked as an advisor and alternate executive director at the World Bank.
Under Republic Act No. 10143, the PTA “shall serve as a learning institution for tax collectors and administrators of the government and selected applicants from the private sector.”
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This law mandates that “all existing officials and personnel of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the Bureau of Customs (BOC), and the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) shall be required to undergo the re-tooling and enhancement seminars and training programs to be conducted by the PTA. All applicants to the said bureaus shall also be required to pass the basic courses before they can be hired whether on contractual or permanent status.”
The PTA Board of Trustees includes BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay and BOC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero as co-vice chairpersons, and BLGF Executive Director Niño Raymond Alvina as member. The seats for the two other representatives of the academe have yet to be filled.
