Category Archive for: komentaryo

komentaryo

The right questions about #BuhayCarinderia: and some hope for DOT

New Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat had no choice but to hit the ground running, what with a Department of Tourism that’s suffered for two years under one Wanda Tulfo-Teo, who (and I repeat) already had a blind item against her as early as November 2016, only so many months into office. That blind item would be confirmed as true by the complaint of Concerned DOT Employees in June 2017, a complaint that was left ignored by the Office of the President and Bong Go’s Presidential Action Center.

Romulo-Puyat should also be looking at all those “shows” that have USec Kat de Castro traveling the country, talking about different sites, eating food, doing activities — it is so badly made, and it is unclear who it is talking to, that it is clearly a waste of public funds given just its lack of clear vision, audience, and goodness gracious, terrible production values. And please please, nip that proposal to build a Nickolodeon in El Nido, and to hold the Miss Universe pageant in the country AGAIN, when there has yet to even be an accounting of the money DOT spent for the last Miss U Pageant here.

Hoorays are in order though: Romulo-Puyat is looking into the travesty that is Cesar Montano, and thank heavens for that. This is a man after all who already had a corruption complaint filed against him — again with Go’s Presidential Action Center — in March 2017, which is also proof positive that Duterte’s “no to corruption” stance is only applicable to some people, but not to others (it took him two years to fire Wanda Teo after all).

But Romulo-Puyat shouldn’t just be looking at whether Buhay Carinderia is legal or not. She should be looking at whether the project is even well thought out, if it is necessary at all, and if in fact it will serve the karinderya owners, the communities that cradle them, and tourism — the kind that will bring in foreigners because of our food. This is not merely about whether it’s above board, it’s about whether or not the P80-million pesos the P320 million pesos could not be used for better, say, for real projects that push for the karenderya, bakery, street food, as reason enough for tourists to visit.  (more…)

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

Mocha, diplomacy, and the reckless endangerment of our OFWs

When on April 25 the Kuwait News Agency broke the news that the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry had announced that Philippine Ambassador Renato Villa was being declared persona-non-grata, and was being told to leave the country in a week, it was not clear to me what it was about. What was clear to me though was that there was reason for such a strong statement coming from the Kuwaiti government.

See, days before, I had combed through Presidential Communications’ Asec for Social Media Mocha Uson’s official Facebook page, after realizing that she was in fact in Kuwait covering the interwoven events happening there: the final batch of repatriated OFWs availing of the amnesty program of the Kuwaiti government, the state of OFWs in embassy shelters, and the rescue of OFWs (this is what she herself says in a live video dated April 19).

Watching her videos, listening to how she was speaking to government officials and OFWs, revealed what we all know to be Mocha’s basic lack of sense about the proper behaviour of government officials, but especially so during this highly sensitive situation. Suffice it to say that her kind of “coverage” would have been enough to do us in with the Kuwaiti government, especially given diplomatic relations vis a vis our overseas migrant workers. If anything, I thought Mocha was reason enough for the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry to demand that the Philippines do this whole task of diplomacy better.  (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…)