{"id":118774,"date":"2017-09-20T22:25:22","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T02:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=118774"},"modified":"2017-09-20T22:25:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T02:25:22","slug":"senate-panel-approves-pcoo-2018-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/09\/20\/senate-panel-approves-pcoo-2018-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate panel approves PCOO 2018 budget"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Presidential<\/a>
Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella. (PCOO photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u2014\u00a0A Senate panel on Wednesday approved the proposed 2018 budget of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) and its attached agencies worth PHP1.351 billion — a PHP 22.337-million decrease from 2017 budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe budget of PCOO and its attached agencies is hereby approved and will be forwarded to plenary for deliberations,\u201d said Senator Joseph Victor Ejercito, who presided over the budget hearing.<\/p>\n

The breakdown of PCOO\u2019s PHP1.351 billion budget is as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \u2029 PCOO proper — PHP256.719 million<\/li>\n
  • \u2029 Bureau of Broadcast Services (BBS) — PHP370.094 million<\/li>\n
  • \u2029 Bureau of Communications Services (BCS) — PHP37.852 million<\/li>\n
  • \u2029 National Printing Office (NPO) — PHP10.957 million<\/li>\n
  • \u2029 News and Information Bureau (NIB) — PHP129.125 million<\/li>\n
  • \u2029 Philippine Information Agency (PIA) — PHP335.376 million<\/li>\n
  • \u2029 Radio TV Malacanang (RTVM) — PHP210.883 million<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    During the budget hearing, PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar also mentioned a number of his agency\u2019s accomplishments including the launch of a new website for its newswire service, Philippine News Agency (PNA).<\/p>\n

    Andanar said that he also plans to establish major hubs for the People\u2019s Television Network in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to \u201clocalize\u201d their programs.<\/p>\n

    Meanwhile, Ejercito questioned Andanar about his agency\u2019s efforts to deal with successive blunders hounding its attached agencies, \u00a0particularly the PNA.<\/p>\n

    Andanar said that newly-appointed Undersecretary Joel Sy Egco, former editor and chief of reporters of The Manila Times, will be tasked to supervise operations of the PNA.<\/p>\n

    Egco, for his part, reiterated that the gaffes of PNA are \u201cunacceptable\u201d and that \u201ccriticism is understandable\u201d and that there is a need for \u201cdrastic changes\u201d in terms of the agency\u2019s organization and orientation.<\/p>\n

    He acknowledged that there is also a lack of PNA personnel but assured that the current staff would undergo training on journalism.<\/p>\n

    Asked by Ejercito if he considered the gaffes in the PNA as an attempt to sabotage the PCOO and the Duterte administration, Egco said that he has requested the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to probe these claims.<\/p>\n

    The PNA supervisor said that his agency is requesting for a PHP66.176 million budget for 2018, which will come from the budget of the NIB.<\/p>\n

    Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri, meanwhile, urged Andanar to task his agencies to produce more \u201cgood news\u201d about the infrastructure projects under the Duterte administration as these were barely highlighted in mainstream media.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    MANILA\u2014\u00a0A Senate panel on Wednesday approved the proposed 2018 budget of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) and its attached …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":104940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[24424,20852,19396],"class_list":["post-118774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","tag-approved-proposed-budget","tag-presidential-communications-operations-office-pcoo","tag-senate-panel","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}