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.

I wrote about the complaint in broad strokes in July 2017 careful not to implicate anyone who might still be working at the DOT.

In February 2018 what seems to be another complaint, which includes details of Teo’s own specific travels, made it to mainstream news reports. Teo (of course!) promptly denied it, spinning it to be about giving “the little people” who have worked in DOT for years but have not been able to travel. Teo specifically talks about the free cruise from Star Cruises, which gave DOT 10 cabins for free. According to her, those were free and therefore no public funds were spent on the trip of those “little people.”

So this was a gift, yes? From a private company to a government agency, yes? And therefore, isn’t Teo pointedly violating RA 6713, Sec 3d?

Public officials and employees shall not solicit or accept, directly or indirectly, any gift, gratuity, favor, entertainment, loan or anything of monetary value from any person in the course of their official duties or in connection with any operation being regulated by, or any transaction which may be affected by the functions of their office.

Meanwhile the rest of the list of questionable travels was brushed off, with USec Ricky Alegre spinning it to say that Teo was “taking the cudgels” for the aforementioned employees who had benefitted from Teo’s, uh, generosity to “the little people”:

As for the other DOT employees dragged in the subject article, the secretary has taken up the cudgels for them, having signed their respective travel orders as official in nature. All trips are in accordance with this administration’s policy to engage them to better understand and appreciate their respective roles and contributions in the development and promotion of our tourism industry.

Teo herself says:

“Don’t you think they need to travel because they are part of the DOT? And that’s what I did.”

Actually, no. Just because you’re an employee of the Department of Tourism does not mean you need to be traveling. In fact, many staff members in government offices can move from one agency to the next, because their functions are not specific to a given agency, but about a specific skillset. Say, a cashier, or a clerk, can function as exactly that — be the best cashier and clerk — in any government office, regardless of what department. Meanwhile there are employees whose functions are specific to a given department, say DOT employees who are in fact in charge of marketing and promotions, and therefore DO NEED to be networking with and learning from other countries. For those employees, travel is key.

Here, a break down of the list of alleged questionable travels of Wanda Teo’s “chosen” employees. This is based on the June 2017 complaint which was filed with Office of President Duterte. It seems — given news reports — that it overlaps with what was in the more recent complaint that fueled the February 2018 news reports. I’ve withheld the names of employees and instead include their positions here.

Utility Worker / Messenger of Records – Traveled to Beijing.
Messenger of General Services – Traveled to Beijing.
Utility Worker, Cash Department – Traveled to Venice Italy, May 2017, Cost: P500,000.
Utility Worker, Financial Management Service – Traveled to Taiwan.
Utility Worker, Records Section – Traveled to Dubai.
Utility Worker, Cash Department – Traveled to Japan.
Utility Worker, OSEC – Traveled to Cambodia, and given Star Virgo Cruise.
Staff, OSEC – Traveled to Japan.
Staff, OSEC – Traveled to Japan.
Two Staff Members, OSEC – Traveled to Dubai.
Two Lawyers, from Legal and OSEC – Traveled to Moscow.
Staff, Budget Dept – Traveled to Italy.
Make-Up Artist – Travels with Wanda Teo.

Here’s the thing. Teo thinking that “the little people” should get to travel is good, if not kind. But that’s why government offices can have office outings, as with all offices. But pinpointing specific employees for particular junkets and official trips already points to the fact that there are some employees whose work depend on these travels — on learning from these, on marketing the country in these places — and there are some employees who can continue doing their jobs without having traveled at all.

If the goal of Teo is to spread the free trips around, then that already highlights what is fundamentally wrong with her leadership: she has no idea what she’s doing. For the Tourism Department, there are no free trips. You are not there to go on junkets and enjoy the freebies. At the DOT, every trip, foreign and local, means work. These are not vacations. And certainly it means that these trips are not to be given away as gifts.

And if in fact Teo believes that there is nothing wrong with giving away these “trips,” then why did she find the need to tell employees to be more careful in posting about their official trips on social media? In a memo dated February 27 2017, sent to all DOT officials, employees, regional & foreign offices, and all attached agencies, Teo told employees to be “more circumspect” about social media postings on official travel / assignments. But here’s a conundrum: if employees are in fact on “official business” which means they have “official functions” where they are, why would it be a problem that they are posting photographs that are “no longer related / necessary to the purpose / intention of your official travel / assignment”? The trips are about work, but having dinner at the end of the long day, or posting photos of tourist spots, shouldn’t be a problem.

Unless of course you’re not supposed to be on that official trip, because it has absolutely nothing to do with your job. Unless of course you’re one of those “little people” that Teo decides deserves the “gift” of travel, using public funds, which in the process disenfranchises those who actually need to travel in order to do their jobs well. 

Oh, and Teo’s defense about Angelito Ucol, the man labelled as “make-up artist” by the complaint, and who it alleges goes where the tourism secretary goes? Teo says that he is in fact her Executive Assistant: “he works in the office, he files, he types, he works.” The June 2017 complaint also points out that Ucol, other than being her assistant, was appointed by Teo into the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) of the DOT.

What a make-up artist, cum executive assistant, would know about bidding and awards, is beyond me. That there is no list on the Department of Tourism website of who is actually in the BAC, just makes this all even more suspicious.

That Duterte has not done anything at all, discredits his insistence that there is no corruption in his government. With Wanda Tulfo Teo, it’s not just a whiff. It’s a stench. ***

The official June 2017 complaint letter, and the Feb 2017 memo are available upon request. Send me an email.