COA Criticizes Ben Tulfo Over Bitag Media’s Income
The Commission on Audit (COA) criticized the radio journalist Ben Tulfo for Bitag Media’s income over alleged irregularities.
COA allegedly found irregularities on Ben Tulfo’s income on his show “Bitag” for earning P120 million on PTV-DOT deal.
However, the documents show that Ben Tulfo’s Bitag Media allegedly has the right to the production cost of airing tourism segments.
COA said that the ‘crime of graft’ has been allegedly created by the contract, which is giving the right to the media company of 75 percent cut on total airing cost or an amount of P89. 878.
The commission also said that the 2017 audit report of DOT shows a possible conflict of interest which may be a violation of Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.”
The state auditors also explained that the reported violations could be also considered as a violation of another law stating:
“Causing any undue injury to any party, including the Government, or giving any private party any unwarranted benefits, advantage or preference in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.”
According to some reports, there’s a possible conflict of interest happened since Wanda Teo, the sister of Ben Tulfo was still the DOT secretary during that time.
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