Teo blames PTV4 auditors for questioning allegedly anomalous deal involving her brother

DAVAO CITY – Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo blamed state auditors assigned at the government-owned People’s Television (PTV) Network for its report questioning the controversial placement of advertisements worth P60 million in the program “Kilos Pronto,” which is produced by Media Unlimited Incorporated (MBUI), a blocktimer in the network that is owned by her brother Ben Tulfo.

In a press conference during the First Philippine National Halal Conference at the Marco Polo Hotel on Wednesday, Teo claimed the state auditors at the Department of Tourism (DOT) did not find any anomalies in the documents of the agency.

“Hindi po COA (Commission on Audit) ng DOT ang may problema, COA ng PTV4 (The problem is not with DOT’s COA, it’s with PTV4’s). I do not know what happened. The people should be asking PTV not DOT because ayos po ang papers namin (because our papers are okay). It has been there, it has been bugging me,” she said.

The tourism chief maintained that there was no conflict of interest since it was PTV4 which placed the advertisements in Kilos Pronto.

She claimed she had nothing to do with the ad placements and that she had no knowledge PTV4 was going to place the commercials in her brother’s program.

“All checks were paid for PTV4,” Teo said. She added the contract was made between PTV4 and DOT, went through a bidding, and was reviewed by the agency’s legal team.

“There was no truth to report that I selected the production house of my brothers. It’s not true because I cannot dictate on PTV4 which programs to place the ads. They decided on it,” Teo said.

She said the agency spent about P500 million on advertisements, placed in different national and international media outfits such as ABS-CBN, GMA, CNN Philippines, CNN International, BBC, Discovery Channels, and national broadsheets.

She said they placed advertisements in PTV Network to support the state-run media outfit as instructed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte.