Senate panel OKs P1.9-B PCO budget for 2024

The Senate committee on finance approved Monday the budget proposal of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) for fiscal year 2024.

The PCO is seeking P1.921 billion to sustain its operations for next year. The proposed budget will be endorsed to the plenary.

In defending the PCO budget, Secretary Cheloy Garafil highlighted the agency's campaign against the proliferation of fake news.

"Ang number one priority pa rin namin siyempre communication kay Presidente pero of course underlying that is 'yung nasabi ninyo nga kanina, 'yung fight against fake news kaya nga po ngayong taon, nag-launch kami ng media information literacy campaign para po matugunan 'yung problema sa fake news," she said.

(Our number one priority is of course the communication with the President, but of course, underlying that is our fight against fake news. That's why we launched the media information literacy campaign to address the problem on fake news.)

In the 2023 financial performance of the agency, 96.60% has been disbursed, Garafil said.

During the budget hearing, Garafil was also asked about the PCO's unobligated funds and she responded that the bottleneck was with two projects that she hoped would be finished by the end of the year.

"The bottleneck of the unobligated funds is the two projects that are still under construction, namely the Visayas Media Hub and the one in Bukidnon. There were delays, meron din problema sa weather, sa soil erosion din. So, maraming problema," Garafil said.

(There were delays, and there were also problems with the weather, also with soil erosion. So, there are a lot of problems.)—AOL, GMA Integrated News