MANILA, Philippines (Updated 2:52 p.m.) — Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said the Senate should look into the spending of the Presidential Communications Operations Office during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in 2017.
Trillanes filed Senate Resolution 735 Wednesday, directing the upper chamber to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, into the proper disbursement of PCOO’s funding for information campaign during the country’s ASEAN chairmanship last year.
“There is an immediate need to look into the alleged irregularities in the disposition of PCOO’s budget and its irregular expenditures for the aforementioned information caravan in order to ensure that government funds are legally and properly allocated, directed and spent toward the sole purpose for which the funds were allocated.”
Trillanes on Tuesday had earlier filed the same resolution, which relied heavily on a report of tabloid Hataw, seeking a Senate probe into the PCOO’s information drive during the 2017 ASEAN Summit.
The report alleged that the Commission on Audit found the P647.11 million information caravan of the PCOO Committee on Media Affairs and Strategic Communications anomalous.
The opposition senator, in filing the new resolution, omitted the portion which said that such move prompted Undersecretary Noel Puyat, who led the committee which launched the information drive, to resign from his post as cited on the tabloid report.
“The said news report has yet to be officially validated by the COA. Nonetheless, there is still a need for PCOO to explain publicly the disbursement of the said fund,” Trillanes said.
A report of the state-run People’s Television Network Inc. dated May 11 cited that COA, in a letter addressed to PCOO, denied that the audit report mentioned in the tabloid was issued. — Gaea Katreena Cabico