Assistant Communications Secretary Marie Banaag. SCREENGRAB FROM RTV MALACAñANG VIDEO
MANILA, Philippines — The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) on Thursday said it only used P1.5 million from the P10-million budget allocated for the agency’s federalism campaign, and that it already liquidated it last May.
PCOO Assistant Secretary Marie Rafael Banaag said the liquidated P1.5 million was spent by the agency since October 2018, when it received the amount from the Department of Budget and Management.
According to PCOO, the P1.5 million was released to the Philippine Broadcasting System (PBS) – one of its attached agencies.
But PCOO’s Office of the Undersecretary for Legal Affairs said the amount released to PBS was not fully spent in 2018.
“Yung P1.5M hindi naman po lahat naubos ‘yun noong 2018,” the office said.
Banaag also said the unspent amount of P8.5 million was “reverted to the National Treasury” on December 31, 2018, pursuant to Section 5.2.2.2 of DBM National Budget Circular No. 573 dated January 3, 2018.
“The fund was eventually released back to the PCOO in March 2019,” she added, “This amount was eventually transferred to our attached agencies” Philippine Information Agency, Philippine Broadcasting Service, and People’s Television Network Inc.
In its 2018 annual audit report, the Commission on Audit has (COA) said PCOO has a P10-million unliquidated fund intended for its federalism campaign.
“The report was done based on the data that was given to the COA at the end of the year, 2018. At that time, at the time of writing (in) December 2018, it was not yet fully liquidated because there were still unspent funds,” PCOO explained.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the lead agency tasked to undertake a nationwide federalism campaign, released a P10-million budget to PCOO through an August 2018 memorandum of agreement.
“The P1.5 million was transferred to PBS (in) October 2018 but until 2019 before our MOA with DILG ends, PBS was still using the money. So while the P1.5 million was transferred in 2018, the expenses being charged against the P1.5 million, the deliverables extended to 2019,” PCOO said.
“In line with the Commission on Audit’s Guidelines on the transfer of funds to attached agencies,” Banaag said, “the PCOO could not immediately legally transfer the funds to the attached agencies without certain requirements.”
“Thus, due to this delay and changes in the requirements and deliverables for the campaign, a part of the fund remained unspent,” she added.
Banaag said “the PCOO tapped its attached agencies, namely the Philippine Information Agency, Philippine Broadcasting Service, and People’s Television Network Inc., to effectively carry out this duty through various media platforms such as broadcast media and social media.”
Liquidated: P1.5 million
“In May 2019, in accordance with the revised deliverables and revised timeline of the DILG for the Federalism Campaign, the PCOO, and its attached agencies provided liquidation and progress reports to the DILG,” Banaag said.
As to the P8.5 million, PCOO said it still has “ongoing projects” for their federalism campaign.
PCOO’s legal affairs office said, “We still have projects for the relaunch of the federalism campaign for this year.”
“Since the start of the campaign, the DILG and PCOO have been exerting their utmost efforts for the Federalism Campaign. To date, the PCOO remains fully committed (to) educating the Filipino people on Federalism,” Banaag said. (Editor: Katherine G. Adraneda)