Category Archive for: bayan

komentaryo

Damage control, the Tulfos, and returning the P60M pesos

Will it matter at all that the Tulfos are returning the P60 million pesos that it received from the Department of Tourism’s (DOT’s) advertising fund placed with PTV4?

The answer is no. Because while that’s P60M in taxpayers’ money that changed hands from DOT to PTV4 to the Tulfos’ production outfit Bitag Media, and of course we want it returned, there is little here that tells us it won’t happen again. Neither is there any indication that more of it isn’t happening. See, there are just too many other questions about this triumvirate of two government agencies and one private company, bound together by the Tulfo name. There are too many questions that demand answers.  (more…)

komentaryo

#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…)

komentaryo

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…)

komentaryo

Duterte rages against fact-finding missions

Halfway through the week and the Duterte government, in seemingly separate and distinct instances, has revealed how what it has normalized — what it has strengthened — in the past two years is a form of leadership that fears criticism and rages against accountability. It’s easy to think that this is just about the drug war, and how Duterte has tried consistently, and unsuccessfully, to evade accountability, by either (1) saying that it is not illegal for a President to say “I will kill you!” or (2) discrediting and / or removing from position anyone at all who stands against the war on drugs.

But this attitude has seeped into the ways in which other branches of government work, how these agencies are run, given leaders who are taking from Duterte’s school of (non-)governance, which seeks nothing less than a citizenry that will kow-tow to a leader’s whims, no matter how wrong or violent, unfair or unjust. At the heart of it are leaders that cannot handle criticism and do not know how to even respond properly and accordingly. That it cuts across Duterte’s sacred cows is no surprise: Wanda Teo’s Department of Tourism, Liza Diño’s Film Development Council of the Philippines, the Bureau of Immigration and the military.  (more…)

komentaryo

Portrait of Spocky Farolan as UP Regent (Part 2)

Does this man deserve two blog entries?

Yes, for two reasons. One, he has not stopped. After he went ballistic on that first thread, he actually posted another status, this time saying that he might now be open to the proposal to make the State University a post-grad university, so that he doesn’t have to deal with UPCAT examinees anymore. He hashtagged this thoughtless assertion “Not really a proponent of this but I’m pissed so screw you” and “galit sa mga punyetang ingrato” and “I have been anger free for a while ngayon pumutok so putangina niyo.”

Two, while he *tries* to admit that he lost his temper when he shouldn’t have, he also spends as much time defending his original violent, angry, and absolutely uncalled for responses to the public on his Facebook page, saying that in fact, if you look at his thread, whenever there’s a proper comment, he actually responds properly as well.

That is not only the weakest excuse, it’s also a lie.  (more…)