The Presidential Communications Operations Office has earned some notoriety in the past two years. The agency tasked to deliver and clarify the President’s message to the people has, alas, committed nefarious gaffes that would be laughable if they weren’t so tragic.
Among the grievous mistakes of the PCOO: Using misleading photos, misidentifying people, using unverified news, committing atrocious grammatical errors in basic communication, blurring the line between fact and opinion—sometimes fact and fakery —and waging a social media war against those it perceives to be critical of the President.
Controversial posts are eventually taken down or rectified, but its representatives, led by Secretary Martin Andanar, tend to take a haughty stance against those who point out their mistakes. Worse, Andanar has the habit of laying blame on his subordinates instead of acting as a true leader and holding himself accountable for the blunders.
An official of the agency even had the gall to say its correction of its mistakes proves their people are the best and brightest there are. What escaped this official was that correction of an error is not a sign of excellence or heroism but a basic act.
Such a deficiency in ability and attitude worsens, not helps, the communication standing of the President, himself already given to rambling, cursing and self-contradiction. Unfortunately, it appears the communication team enjoys Mr. Duterte’s unqualified confidence—he has never expressed any dissatisfaction at the work of this patently underwhelming team.
It’s a team that is given to overspending, we now learn.
The Commission on Audit has recommended the filing of charges against the agency for P38 million on deficient disbursements of its expenses during the Asean Summit held here in November.
The deficiencies, according to CoA, were in the form of:
• purchases of goods and services worth P27.5 million;
• rentals of vans worth P7.3 million; and
• IT equipment rental of P4 million. The commission said PCOO could have saved money had it bought, not rented, the equipment.
The CoA noted that the PCOO split its contracts among various suppliers, an act that deprived it of big discounts if the purchases were made in bulk and under established norms.
Nobody challenges the fact that the Asean summit was a high-profile event that required the government to put its best foot forward. Unfortunately, the PCOO mistook this to mean it could spend carelessly and show off at taxpayers’ expense.
We wonder if this latest anomaly would be enough to jolt the President into realizing that his communications team has become a liability—something he does not need now, or ever.