COA: P2.4-M Bohol calendars an ‘extravagant’ expenditure

MANILA, Philippines - The provincial government of Bohol spent more than P2.4 million in public funds in 2011 to print 122,850 calendars prominently featuring the pictures of its officials.

State auditors, in a report released recently, said the province incurred “unnecessary and extravagant expenditure” in the printing of the calendars which appeared to be meant for personal purposes.

Such spending, according to the Commission on Audit (COA), violates government’s austerity measures, the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines, and audit laws.

As specified in the purchase orders, COA said the calendars showed the accomplishments of the provincial government led by Gov. Edgardo Chatto from July to December 2010, although pictures of provincial officials in various activities rather than the calendar dates dominated the materials.

“In one type of calendar, the published accomplishment had very small letter fonts that cannot almost be read or deciphered while in the other calendars one-half of the entire space was filled with the pictures of provincial and other agency officials with one-liner captions of the HEAT programs,” the audit team reported.

In the main calendar, state auditors said the entire space “was covered with photos of officials and other personalities while the calendar dates’ portion was only one-fourth of the entire space.”

According to COA, the printing of calendars may be justified as they showed the province’s accomplishments, but if such was the main purpose, the published accomplishments and calendar dates should have been given the prominence and substantial coverage that they deserved rather than the pictures.

“(These) details in a print media could be considered private and personal in nature. Thus, it has to be paid from the private fund of concerned officials,” COA added.

Bohol officials tried to justify the expenses by arguing that the posters of the provincial government’s accomplishments do not fall under the prohibition on “paid media advertisements.”

“The allegation that these expenditures were ‘unnecessary’ and ‘extravagant’ is, to our view, bereft of any strong and convincing basis. These were single-sheet posters, printed on standard board paper, without any unusual accoutrements or fancy design, and certainly much more austere than the standard material published by other agencies and local government units,” they said.