This guide to the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission’s i-Report database originally ran as a sidebar to my collaboration with Karol Ilagan and Malou Mangahas of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
AS PART of its mandate to supervise and monitor corporate activity in the Philippines, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) maintains the i-Report database, which contains electronic copies of publicly available corporate filings with the agency. The most readily accessible registry of business entities in the Philippines, the database is indispensable for the everyday work of regulators, lenders, and investors—and was a crucial source of data for this story.
But outside a limited circle of researchers, the database has remained largely underused. This may partly have to do with its relative obscurity, or with the content and format of the documents that may seem inscrutable to lay eyes.
Kenneth Cardenas 