Search Results for: "wanda teo"

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Wanda Teo, a P60-million ad placement, and the stench of corruption (Part 3)

When news broke that Wanda Teo’s Department of Tourism had placed advertisements with her own brothers’ TV show which is aired on PTV4, it was no surprise. After all, there is an existing complaint against Teo from the concerned employees of the DoT, about alleged unethical, corrupt, questionable practices that has been languishing in Malacañang since June 2017, which also sheds light on the blind item (which turned out to be about her, as she herself responded to it) about a government official asking for free shoes and theater tickets from a hotel in Manila.

Teo has also NOT been forthright or upfront about the expenses of government for the Miss Universe pageant in early 2017, which she says happened without any amount coming from public funds, even as it is obvious that money was spent by government to hold the pageant here. A request via the Freedom of Information portal for a breakdown of expenses has yet to be responded to by the DoT; it’s been there for 100 days.

Which is to say that it’s no surprise that the Commission on Audit’s report on PTV4 has surfaced this obviously highly irregular (to put it kindly), and absolutely questionable and unethical (again, kindly), transfer of cash between Teo’s office and her brothers’ production outfit, which produces her other brother’s TV show.  (more…)

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Wanda Teo and the tale of the traveling “little people” OR, a whiff of corruption (Part 2)

It was in June 2017 when I started receiving information from Department of Tourism employees about Duterte appointee Wanda Tulfo Teo. It was seven months after the blind item about a government official who had asked for free shoes, shopping GCs, and 150 tickets to watch a theater production at a mall — which she denied. It was soon after this column was written, speaking about Teo’s incompetence and cluelessness about the environment and sustainability, given her ‘excitement’ over Nicolodeon building a development project in Coron Palawan.

At this point, Teo was a year into office and DOT employees had already given her enough time to prove herself as a competent, trustworthy government official. Alas, what was revealed in the seven-page letter to the Office of the President’s Presidential Complaint Center (stamped received June 9 2017), was a Teo leadership controlled by her Chief Of Staff Arlene Mancao who was defined as a “tyrant” by the employees. It also spoke about how Teo runs the DOT. (more…)

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Wanda Teo and a pair of designer shoes OR, a whiff of corruption (Part 1)

There is little by way of credibility that explains why Wanda Tulfo Teo is still Department of Tourism Secretary. Especially given a President who keeps repeating over and over: Just a whiff of corruption and you’re out.

With Teo, it’s not just a whiff. But a stench. It’s not even just a stench, but proper documentation about, and witnesses to, the manner in which she handles her position and operates her office. And it doesn’t take a genius to see how incompetent she is, unable to talk about a vision for tourism that is not just about motherhood statements and beauty pageant answers — and we’re talking “world peace” level answers, not even Gloria Diaz responding with “Why, do you eat with your feet?” when a judge asked about Filipinos eating with our hands, IN 1969.

Let’s not even get into what she says though, because what she does, the allegations that have been raised against her, are enough to get any public official fired. This is not one instance, but multiple instances; it’s not just one story but multiple stories. As sacred cows go, she’s the most sacred of them all.  (more…)

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#WandaTeo, the Tulfos, conflict-of-interest: What innocence?

On May 7, the Tulfos and Department of Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo Teo announced through Teo’s lawyer Ferdinand Topacio that the Tulfo brothers’ Bitag Media is returning the P60 million pesos they received as payment for DOT ad placements on the show Kilos Pronto — a Tulfo show that is blocktimer on PTV4.

This, after Teo insisted that there was no conflict-of-interest since the DOT’s deal was with PTV4, not Bitag Media. This, after the Tulfo brothers went ballistic online, calling out other media personalities who put into question their sister, and the brothers themselves — because this is basic: if YOU are blocktiming with a network, that network is NOT supposed to give you ads. In fact Bitag Media has to find its own ads in order to pay for whatever blocktiming amount they are paying the network. This set-up, no matter how they spin it? Is highly irregular.

Topacio yesterday “insisted that Teo and her brothers are innocent,” and here I’m going to tell you how that is impossible.  (more…)

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Wanda, Yedda, Miss Universe: Pomp, pageantry, pretense

Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo Teo is evading a whole lot of questions when she says that government will not spend a single cent on hosting the Miss Universe pageant in the country.

The mere fact that the Department of Tourism (DOT) is all agog about finding sponsors, about doing press releases on this pageant, is already the Duterte government spending on the Miss Universe. This is a government office that should be putting together a real tourism plan, one that takes into consideration the crisis that tourism is faced with, interwoven as it is with environmental degradation, heritage destruction, and infrastructure underdevelopment.

For a pageant like Miss Universe, the DOT will be spending the rest of the next six months just working on this one thing, using whatever’s left of its P3.61 BILLION-peso budget for 2016. And you know this to be true because what else have we heard from the DOT since Secretary Teo was appointed?

Nothing.

(more…)