Palace dares lawyer to reveal PCOO execs who got cut from P60m DOT contract with Tulfo media firm
Malacanang challenged on Tuesday a lawyer of former Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo to reveal the two executives of the Presidential Communications Operations Office who allegedly also shared in the P60-million, which the DOT paid to Bitag Media Unlimited.
Ferdinand Topacio, Teo's legal counsel, reportedly said that Bitag, the company of Teo's brother Ben Tulfo, had given part of the P60 million to two PCOO officials. PCOO is headed by Secretary Martin Andanar.
"Well, we hope he will make it public because it's unfair to the PCOO that the whole PCOO is subjected to this kind of criticisms. We hope he will name, file a complaint, put it in an affidavit so that it could be investigated thoroughly," Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a press briefing.
"So we are encouraging Attorney Topacio as an officer of the court to reveal whom he said shared (in the P60 million) so that they could be investigated and in order that the whole PCOO would not be accused," he added.
When Teo was not yet forced to resign as DOT chief, Topacio had said that the Tulfos would return the P60 million.
But last week, in his Facebook post, Tulfo, chief executive officer and founder of Bitag, said his company would not return the money because it was earned as a legitimate advertising contract between his "Kilos Pronto" program and the state-run People's Television network.
He said those who were waiting for him to return the money, could wait until their eyes turn white because he would return nothing.
The Commission on Audit flagged the P60 million that DOT paid to Tulfo's media firm for an advertising contract due to an alleged conflict of interest. Celerina Monte/DMS
