The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) may face a budget cut next year if it commits another blunder, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian warned on Monday.
Gatchalian was the latest victim of the PCOO when a press release posted on its website on June mistakenly identified him as “Sen. Winston Gatchalian.”
READ: PCOO calls Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian as ‘Winston’
The senator hopes that this would be the last blunder of the agency or else its budget would be put under scrutiny when Congress deliberates on the 2019 national budget.
“I think kung may mangyari na namang mistake (If there is another mistake) they will have to justify their budget to the last centavo because in my opinion, it’s not worth giving them P1.3 billion anymore if they commit the same mistake over and over again,” Gatchalian said in an interview at his office in the Senate.
Asked if the PCOO budget might be slashed, the senator said, “Pwedeng mabawasan or pwedeng (The budget may be slashed but) maybe it’s time to create another office, it can be possible.”
As a victim of the PCOO blunder, Gatchalian said he has a “stronger voice” to require the PCOO to justify its budget.
The senator pointed out that the PCOO is not an ordinary office since it is the communication office of President Rodrigo Duterte himself.
“The more they will have blunders, the more their credibility will be affected,” he said, “Dapat matuto sila sa nangyari at ayusin nila yung kanilang (They should learn from the incident and should fix their) standard operating procedures.”
The PCOO has already apologized to the senator for the mistake and promised to avoid making the same mistakes.
READ: PCOO moves to prevent errors, apologizes to Gatchalian