The Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission has requested comments on proposed amendments that would strengthen accreditation standards for auditing firms and external auditors and extend Group A requirements to corporations with major government contracts. Corporations awarded a single government contract of at least PHP 100 million, or combined contracts of at least PHP 150 million within a reporting year, would have to engage a Group A-accredited external auditor from the year the threshold is reached until the projects are completed or delivered. They would also submit an audited, notarized schedule of government contracts with their annual financial statements. The draft would raise applicants’ experience thresholds to five corporate clients with assets of at least PHP 100 million each for Group A, PHP 50 million each for Group B and PHP 5 million each for Group C. It would also tighten audit-quality thresholds, expand the grounds for outright denial and suspension, revocation or modification of accreditation, and limit conditional accreditation in the same category to three grants over an applicant’s accreditation history. Grounds include serious audit or independence failures, misrepresentation or concealment of findings, non-cooperation with regulatory reviews, repeated violations and six or more material findings in one set of financial statements. Comments are due by May 15, 2026. The government-contract financial statement requirement is proposed to apply to periods ending Dec. 31, 2026, onward, while the other requirements would take effect 15 days after complete publication of the final circular.

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