THE Faculty Association of the University of Santo Tomas (FAUST) is folding up, as it is in the process of liquidating its assets and reviewing its members’ accounts for return of their investments starting this month, according to Faust legal counsel Atty. Zim Zuniega.
The FAUST board of directors, with the consensus of its members, decided to cease operations last July due to the expiration of its corporate existence in the Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2003, Zuniega said. The registration was not renewed.
“It was only in May 2005 that the board of directors of FAUST discovered that its corporate registration had already expired,” he said.
Under the Corporation Code, private corporations have a life span of 50 years from date of registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. After the expiration period, they can again renew the registration for another 50 years.
Unaware of its lapsed registration, the 52-year-old faculty association continued to collect five per cent of its members’ salary until March 2005, Zuniega said.
Some of the members feel that mismanagement of the association’s finances resulting in bankruptcy was the main reason for the non-renewal.
“Kung tututusin bankrupt na ang FAUST,” said Civic Welfare Training Service coordinator Lito Maranan, one of the members of the board of liquidators. “They (the board members of the association) and the members should have given enough attention to the problem. The association should have also released financial statements every year.”
The association had not met for years before the recent assembly where the directors of FAUST presented a financial statement reflecting a deficit, he added.
The faculty association had 300 members composed of tenured and retired UST professors.
The FAUST board of liquidators on the other hand, is exploring ways to use the association’s assets to raise funds and settle the members’ pension plans with Lifetime Plans, the pre-need company which absorbed Pacific Plans Inc.
According to Zuniega, the liquidation is expected to be finished by October 2006. The distribution of the funds will have two phases. The first phase of distribution will cover the amount collected from Oct. 16, 2003 to March 2005, while the second phase will cover the distribution of contributions collected since 1953 to 2003.
.Established in 1953, FAUST provided gratuity retirement funds, loans, and real estate endorsements to professors who contributed five per cent of their monthly salary to the association.
