Andanar avows trust in government workers

Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar made this statement Saturday during his visit to the city in relation to the issues surrounding the uploading of the logo of a private company in lieu of the logo of the Department of Labor and Employment. (PNA PHOTO)

BAGUIO CITY, Aug. 13 — “When we entered the government, we had full trust in the capability of the employees who are already in. We trained them and we remain to believe that they are good workers but we are investigating and someone will answer based on the investigation.”

Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar made this statement Saturday during his visit to the city in relation to the issues surrounding the uploading of the logo of a private company in lieu of the logo of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

He assured that there is an investigation and the result will determine what they will do next, in an effort to better improve the operation and prevent unnecessary mistakes.

Andanar said the department is not sitting on the issue and is taking action but due process is being done in the course of the investigation.

“The employees are covered by the Civil Service laws and we will abide by it. We cannot just remove any person without going through the process of first investigating,” Andanar stressed.

He pointed out that the Philippine News Agency (PNA) is among the media platforms of the government under the PCOO which has been neglected and even with the existence of improved technology the webpage of PNA was left behind.

“When we came in, we upgraded, we trained people, we improved the website, came up with applications to allow the public to have an easier and convenient access,” he added.

In his visit to the City of Pines on Saturday (August 12), Andanar said he is continuously pushing for the upgrading of PNA web site to further serve its purpose, to be the lead newswire service of the Philippine government. PNA is under the supervision of the News and Information Bureau (NIB) of the PCOO.

Andanar said PNA’s improvement allowed it to be noticed and followed by the people.

“Ito ang isa sa hangad kong gawin, ang ayusin at pagandahin ang PNA. Kaya po tayo gumawa ng modernization plan para dito (This is what I wish to do, to fix and upgrade PNA. That’s why we conceptualize a modernization plan).”

Andanar said that under the modernization plan, PNA now has a new website look and an additional mobile application that enables the reader to open the site using their cellular phones.

“We also created a concrete plan for news feeding for the website to keep our readers intact,” he said.

“There will be humps and bumps especially in reforming PNA but we all do what we ought to do.
Government employees are all good and intelligent, they just need a break,” he added.