The Integrated Bar of the Philippines held its first-ever Finance Summit on December 12, 2022, a three-day workshop on IBP Chapter Compliance and Liquidation, designed to strengthen the chapters’ capacity and enhance reporting and liquidating processes by empowering chapter legal aid clerks. To that end, the legal aid clerks of the IBP chapters from all over the nation traveled to the IBP National Office in Pasig, Metro Manila, where the National Office’s Finance Department provided a series of lectures and activities aimed at enhancing and strengthening the legal aid programs and administration of the chapters.
The Summit covered matters such as peak season requirements, how to utilize the IBP’s new online payment options, and how to help members download and use the myIBP app. The clerks were again reappraised on how to create financial and liquidation reports and guarantee compliance with BIR and SC requirements.
The National Center for Legal Aid used the occasion to host the legal aid clerks’ first-ever physical Christmas party on the first day of the Finance Summit, taking into account the fact that this was the first time they had all been together at the National Office.
As a way of giving back for the efforts that the legal aid clerks, as frontliners, have exerted, National President Burt Estrada also informed the clerks that the 25th Board of Governors has approved a performance-based bonus, a Christmas cash allowance, and the provision of vacation and sick leaves, in lieu of service incentive leaves for qualified clerks, starting January 2023. Our clerks were likewise provided health benefits through an HMO program negotiated by the IBP with CareHealth Plus, with the coverage beginning immediately on 13 December 2022.
Lastly, in coordination with Huawei and Radenta Technologies, Inc., the National Office, through Director for Chapter Affairs, Atty. Manuel Joseph B. Ibañez III was able to distribute laptops on the final day of the summit to all the clerks for use in the legal aid programs of the chapters all over the country.
