PNA has 99 plantilla posts, 30 job orders for 2016, COA report says

The Philippine News Agency has 99 plantilla positions and 30 job order posts for 2016, the Commission on Audit has found in its annual audit of the News and Information Bureau of the Presidential Communications Office.

According to an executive summary of the COA report quoted by Bagong Henerasyon party-list Representative Bernadette Herrera-Dy, the PNA's staffing requirement makes up more than half of the 250 plantilla and job order positions of the NIB.

Herrera-Dy in a statement pointed out the 129 positions at the PNA after the news agency drew criticisms for glaring errors on its website.

PNA, however, drew criticisms recently after netizens spread posts on the news agency's apparent headlining mistakes.

The agency was also criticized at one point after it posted the logo of a pineapple processing company for a story on the Department of Labor and Employment.

Herrera-Dy has since sought an inquiry into the PNA and its staffing amid the online errors that put the agency in a bad light.

"I want to know as committee chair: Who are the PCOO editors, reporters, IT personnel and PNA bureau personnel who hold plantilla positions and who are mere job orders?" Herrera-Dy said.

"The COA report says the NIB has 241 authorized plantilla positions but the GAA says the NIB has 266 authorized positions. Which is which? There is a difference of 25 plantilla positions," she said.

"I also take this opportunity to ask Sec. Andanar and Usec. Egco to count and list all the job orders there in the PNA, NIB, and all of the PCOO," Herrera-Dy added.

Sought for comment, Communications Undersecretary Joel Egco indicated that the PNA was up for substantial changes.

He said the news agency was going to hire seven more editors "and other needed staff."

Egco said that he asked for a meeting with Herrera-Dy as regards her concerns over the PNA staffing and the accomplishment of tasks.

"We are in the process of laying d groundwork for a reorganization of PNA. [There's] no clear staffing pattern," Egco told GMA News Online.

"Priorities are training and reorientation, staffing and reorg. We are auditing now the personnel vis-a-vis functions, determining mismatchezls etc.," he added. —NB, GMA News