Palace drops Cha-Cha info drive

MANILA, Philippines — The Presidential Communications and Operations Office (PCOO) has dropped its information campaign on amendments to the 1987 Constitution supposedly set for next year, which is a hint that the Duterte administration has allegedly downplayed efforts for Charter change to shift to a federal form of government.

During briefing on the proposed P1.697-billion budget of the agency for 2020 at the House of Representatives, PCOO Assistant Secretary Marie Banaag revealed that the information drive for the proposed shift to federalism is no longer pushing through.

“The information drive on federalism won’t proceed in 2020. We do not have a budget for it,” she told members of the House appropriations committee.

In 2018, P10 million was released by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to PCOO for the federalism information drive. 

But the Commission on Audit (COA), in its annual report, flagged the agency for its failure to liquidate the said fund, which the COA said has remained unliquidated as of last month.

As one of the President’s campaign promises in 2016, the administration had earlier proposed the shift to a federal form of government wherein the country will be divided into at least 17 regions – each financed with its respective collection of taxes and fees, share in top revenue sources, an equalization fund, the national budget and shares from income sourced in natural resources.

The Palace even created a consultative committee (ConCom) led by retired chief justice Reynato Puno that drafted the proposed Federal Constitution.

Noticeably, however, Duterte no longer pitched for the constitutional amendment in his fourth State of the Nation Address last July as he did in his previous SONAs.

At the same House hearing last Friday, militant lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc confronted the PCOO over reports that one of its attached agencies, Philippine News Agency (PNA), had been red-tagging leftist lawmakers and activists.

ACT party-list Rep. France Castro asked PCOO officials why PNA reports frequently tagged their progressive party-list groups as being fronts of communists.

PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar denied the allegations.

“We do our best, I point out to all of the media agencies of the government to be as objective as possible and to report both sides, whether you’re with the government or with the opposition. It is not our policy to red-tag any organization,” he stressed.

Andanar was also grilled on the Truth Caravan trip of PCOO officials in Europe and US, which cost P1.7 million each.

Of the proposed PCOO budget for 2020, the biggest allocation goes to PCOO proper with P449 million, followed by Broadcast Services with P413 million and Philippine Information Agency with P404 million. 

The proposed budget for 2020 of PCOO is 12.23 percent or P185 million higher than its budget of P1.512 billion for this year.