WE welcome the statement from the Palace that broadcaster Ben Tulfo is not off the hook for the questionable P60-million advertising contract that his sister, former Tourism secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo, awarded his production company in 2017.
Reacting to Tulfo’s defiant refusal to return the P60 million, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said the broadcaster’s decision was disappointing, but the government would go through legal proceedings to recover the money and punish those who are guilty of what appears to be a clear case of conflict of interest.
“It is really saddening. Both Ben and Wanda promised to return the money,” Roque said in a radio interview. “If they do not comply with what they have declared, it’s okay, we go through the process… The President [has said] that it is imperative that the legal process must run [its course] and let those liable be held accountable in the anomalies in the DoT.”
Tulfo had insisted on social media last week he would not return a single centavo of the P60 million.
“We will return nothing,” Tulfo said in a Facebook post. “Our contracts and documents were complete. What we did was legal. We delivered and worked for it. Do you want proof? We have here a ton of videos that PTV-4 produced and aired in our ‘Kilos Pronto’ nationwide, worldwide, and in social media. Prove your allegation of conflict of interest to us in court.”
Teo got caught in the controversy after the Commission on Audit questioned her department’s P60-million ad placement on the Tulfo brothers’ show “Kilos Pronto” through a deal with government network PTV-4 in 2017.
In the ensuing controversy over the apparent conflict of interest, President Rodrigo Duterte sacked Teo, who, in a bid to save face, claimed she had resigned.
This was hardly the first time the President has sacked a Cabinet official over allegations of corruption. Indeed, Mr. Duterte made a point of this during his last State of the Nation Address.
But the President’s anti-corruption efforts have also been criticized for the lack of follow-through. Often, erring officials are allowed to slip quietly out of the limelight, with no other serious consequences outside their firing. Worse, some are later reappointed to other government agencies.
The Tulfo case is an opportunity to correct this notion that those guilty of official corruption need only wait until the controversy has died down and go back to business as usual. In this instance, it is clear that P60 million in public funds were misused – unless we are missing something. There must be no letup in government attempts to right this wrong.
