Some senators want PCOO scrapped

To make the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) “more effective,” some senators want to “revert” it back to the old Office of the Press Secretary (OPS).

Senate President Vicente Sotto III presented the idea when PCOO officials led by Secretary Martin Andanar faced the Senate committee on finance on Wednesday to defend their proposed budget next year.

At the same hearing and before Sotto presented the proposal, PCOO Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson announced her resignation from the post.

“Lately, the perspective of some members of the Senate is that we have completely digressed already from the original intent of the creation of the Office of the Press Secretary. It’s no longer in the landscape of the administration even in the past administration,” he said.

The Senate later said that he was speaking in behalf of Senators Panfilo Lacson and Gringo Honasan.

Besides, Sotto said he was informed that the PCOO was created supposedly to “accommodate some political friends” of the previous administration.

“So we’re thinking that perhaps this the best time to study, while studying your budget, to review and study of the possibility of reverting back into the Office of the Press Secretary,” he said.

“We can streamline that and use your current budget and if necessary, we can infuse more budget for the office to be more effective.”

Reverting back the PCOO into the OPS, he said, could be done through the 2019 General Appropriations Act.

Sotto said he already informed President Rodrigo Duterte about the proposal and that the latter was “acceptable to the idea.”

“While you scrutinize the budget, you can also look into possibility of taking everything all under the umbrella of the Office of the Press Secretary and perhaps it will be more effective than what it is today,” he said.

Senator JV Ejercito, who was presiding over the hearing, agreed with the proposal.

Ejercito echoed Sotto’s statement that the PCOO was formed to accommodate three press secretaries during the past administration.

“So now that we don’t have three press secretaries, probably it’s high time that we go back to the old set up…” he said. /cbb