Key officials and technical staff of the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) underwent a full-day training from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on signature verification and forgery detection last 23 October 2021 via Zoom.

In line with the BLGF’s quality management system under ISO 9001:2015, the BLGF’s Local Debt Monitoring and Evaluation Division (LDMED), coordinated with the NBI’s Questioned Documents Division (QDD) for a virtual and hands-on basic training on the basic principles of signature verification and forgery detection.

The training aimed to improve the internal quality control and risk management of LDMED to ensure such practice will be prevented, and to establish a pool of efficient verifiers who can detect fraud and alterations that may be encountered during regular and official transactions.

In his opening message during the training, BLGF Executive Director Niño Raymond B. Alvina considered the importance of such training for loan certification application of LGUs, and recognized the need to also mainstream such strategy in the processing of appointments of local treasurers and other transactions involving other external stakeholders.

NBI QDD Chief Carolyn Pitoy provided the training and covered the aspects of questioned documents examination, the factors affecting an individual’s handwriting, the important handwriting characteristics, and the steps involved in the examination of signatures and handwriting.

Ms Pitoy also affirmed that their division is open to requests of national government agencies in the course of investigating documents suspected of forgery and alteration.

As a result of this training, improvements in the evaluation process of documents, especially the requirements involved in the issuance of Certificate of Net Debt Service Ceiling and Borrowing Capacity and appointment of local treasurers, are expected to follow.