The recent scandals involving former Tourism secretary Wanda Teo and her brothers have opened a can of worms about the practice of government agencies placing advertisements in media.
Every now and then we see placements, paid for by public funds. Has the Commission on Audit looked into how the billions of pesos are spent? Obviously not!
Why do government agencies have to advertise when they are not even selling anything?
Specifically, why should the Tourism department advertise in a government-owned station like PTV 4 when the communications office has its own budget under the General Appropriations Act?
In the case of Teo and her brothers, placing an ad on PTV 4 through the Tulfos’ program was clearly a conflict of interest. It was anomalous, especially when it was discovered that the brothers’ program was 37th insofar as audience share is concerned.
Since the Presidential Communications Operations Office has control over the Tulfo program, it would be logical to say that Secretary Martin Andanar should also be held responsible for the misuse of DoT funds.
It would be the height of stupidity and incompetence if Andanar were unaware of the very clear conflict there.
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President Duterte said corruption has contaminated every agency. Newly appointed Ombudsman Samuel Martires should dig deeper into the excessive allowances received by lawyers in the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel and also by lawyers of the Solicitor General himself.
There is an existing law that allowances of government lawyers should not exceed half of their annual salaries.
Thus, when a former government corporate counsel saw that some lawyers were getting what the CoA had flagged down as excessive allowances, some of these lawyers started a demolition campaign against him.
Because of these excessive allowances, the President’s war on corruption becomes a mockery!
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The recent mess at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is definitely a wake-up call. Proposals to make Clark International Airport the main gateway to the Philippines should be considered. People are asking if Naia is still viable.
Should Naia be closed down?
I believe it has become obsolete. Look at what happened when a Xiamen Air plane skidded off the runway. Many flights were affected.
It’s true that there is a proposal to rebuild Naia and perhaps have another runway. In the meantime, this is what foreigners have as a first impression of our country.
From my point of view, the government should fast track the San Miguel Bulacan project, a $15-billion aerotropolis that would be located on 2,500 hectares of flatland. This is a proposal by San Miguel Corp.’s Ramon Ang.
This project has already been approved by the National Economic and Development Authority. So what is the government doing?
There are multiple advantages to this airport. There will be more jobs. Even OFWs can be lured to return home and find work here. Access will be easy and fast. Most of all, the world will know that the Philippines is improving its infrastructure.
Our neighbors in Southeast Asia all have great airports. I say it’s about time we caught up.
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I often ask myself if I made the right decision in being a journalist. I could have been a banker, or an entrepreneur, too.
But then I realize I have no regrets, even if this profession did not make me rich.
I am consoled by what the Bible says about rich people. “It’s much easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven.”
Being a lawyer I could have joined prestigious law offices and earned a lot of money.
But no, I chose to be a periodista.
My consolation is that somehow I have made a difference, no matter how small, in comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
I used to be business editor of the Philippines Herald, before joining Kanlaon Broadcasting System just before martial law was proclaimed.
I quit KBS after the Ninoy Aquino assassination and tried my luck as partner of Dizon Paculdo Jurado and Vitug Law Offices. Somehow something was amiss. I longed to be a journalist.
Thus, when my good friend Press Secretary Rod Reyes invited me to join him in founding Manila Standard, I did. Our first issue came out on Feb. 12, 1987.
I have been with this newspaper since and I will pound on my typewriter until I write “30.”
No regrets, indeed—and all these will be in my memoirs.
www.emiljurado.weebly.com
