The Commission on Audit has flagged the Department of Tourism for paying P60.01 million to a company owned by broadcaster Ben Tulfo for advertisements despite the absence of necessary supporting documents.

In its annual report on the People’s Television Network (PTNI), COA said three checks amounting to P60,009,560 were released by the network to Tulfo’s Bitag Media Unlimited Inc. (BMUI) on May 11, November 8 and December 15, 2017 representing payments for DOT’s advertisements.

The agency headed by Tulfo’s sister, Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo, signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with PTNI for the purchase of advertisement airtime with the daily show “Kilos Pronto.”

The magazine-style show is hosted by brothers Ben and Erwin Tulfo with Alex Santos.

Under the MOA, PTNI will air a six-minute DOT advertisement and three-minute DOT spot on “Kilos Pronto.”

The COA, however, found that the multimillion-peso payments were released to BMUI even without the supporting documents such as the MOA/contract between PTNI and the media company, Certificate of Performance, duly approved Budget Utilization Request and Billing Statement detailing the deliverables.

Since there was no MOA wherein the terms and conditions of the agreement are supposed to be spelled out, there was also no basis for the computations on how the said three payments were arrived at,” state auditors said.

COA said that while there was a MOA between PTNI and DOT, it does not contain a provision on specific airtime rates per segment or per spot “and such other terms and conditions of the commercial advertisement specifically as regards the manner of payment.”

State auditors said DOT violated Presidential Decree 1445 or the Government Auditing Code and COA Circular No. 2012-001 by releasing payments to BMUI without the required supporting documents.

Despite the absence of a provision in DOT-PTNI’s agreement about the broadcasting network serving as the collecting agency for “Kilos Pronto,” COA said PTNI still collected the payments for BMUI from DOT.

“Review of the MOA between DOT and PTNI showed that there was no provisions requiring PTNI to remit to Blocktimer BMUI collections from DOT for the segments/spots aired within the program, Kilos Pronto,” it sai