{"id":176787,"date":"2018-08-14T22:18:10","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T02:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=176787"},"modified":"2018-08-14T22:18:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T02:18:10","slug":"gordon-believes-teo-tulfo-criminally-liable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/14\/gordon-believes-teo-tulfo-criminally-liable\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon believes Teo, Tulfo ‘criminally liable’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Gordon, chair of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, said he agreed with the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA), which showed that there is \u201cconflict of interest\u201d in the DOT decision to place advertisements in the Kilos Pronto show. (File photo: Senate of the Philippines\/Facebook)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Senator Richard Gordon on Tuesday said he believes former Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo and her brother Ben Tulfo were allegedly \u201ccriminally liable\u201d in the controversial PHP60-million ad placement deal between the DOT and state-run PTV-4.<\/p>\n

Gordon, chair of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, said he agreed with the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA), which showed that there is \u201cconflict of interest\u201d in the DOT decision to place advertisements in the Kilos Pronto show.<\/p>\n

Kilos Pronto is a block-time show produced by Bitag Media Unlimited Inc., which is owned by Teo’s sibling, Ben Tulfo.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the COA described the ad placement deal as a possible violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt practices Act.<\/p>\n

COA said it was a conflict of interest since the DOT, then led by Teo, paid PHP60 million for the ad placements in a show produced by her brothers, Ben and Erwin Tulfo.<\/p>\n

\u201cLahat ng sinabi ng COA tama yun<\/em>\u00a0(Everything COA said is correct). There\u2019s liability on the part of Tulfo, on the part of PTV-4, of all the other people but it goes down as it goes down,\u201d Gordon told reporters in an interview after the Senate hearing into the controversial ad placement deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cKahit na isauli ang pera, may liability pa rin \u2018yun<\/em>\u00a0(Even if they return the money, there\u2019s still liability),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Gordon said he could include in his committee report the recommendation for the filing of graft charges against the Tulfo siblings.<\/p>\n

He said he did not buy the explanation of Teo, claiming that she did not know that Kilos Pronto was a show hosted by her brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think\u00a0hindi nila alam<\/em>\u00a0(they didn\u2019t know). They should have blown the whistle,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n

He, however, said he believes that the PHP60 million was used \u201cfor TV advertising purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Senate hearing, Gordon questioned the decision of PTV-4 to place advertisements in Kilos Pronto, noting that it had poor ratings.<\/p>\n

PTV-4 general manager Dino Antonio Apolonio explained that the network selected Kilos Pronto because the format of the show, a magazine program, is \u201cfitting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teo said it was entirely the discretion of the PTV-4 where to place the ads.<\/p>\n

In a separate interview, Ben Tulfo said Gordon’s remark about low ratings was not applicable since his show was canceled in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Senator Richard Gordon on Tuesday said he believes former Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo and her brother …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":144000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176787","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=176787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}