Political Appointments Always Lead to Disaster

The dark cloud that hovered over the tourism industry has blown away, thanks to the termination of Wanda Teo and the resignation of Cesar Montano of the Department of Tourism (DoT) and Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), respectively.
The Commission on Appointments has since confirmed the appointment of Bernadette Romulo-Puyat as the new secretary of the DoT.
Although formerly working for the Department of Agriculture, Berna (the Secretary’s nickname) is known to be a fastidious worker, a fast learner and one with a knack for marketing. Berna’s appointment comes as a welcome relief to the stakeholders of the tourism industry, myself included.
With her leading our tourism offensive, we can now start the earnest effort of tourism promotions. In fact, even Budget Secretary Ben Diokno told me that Berna is a good choice for the tourism post. She was one of his best students in advanced economics back in the day.
This piece, however, is not about Berna. It is about Teo and Montano and how they made a farce of the tourism industry. I write this to underscore how presidential appointments made by virtue of political accommodation and not by merit, will always lead to disaster. The Teo and Montano catastrophe is a painful reminder of this.
Most of my regular readers know that I am a regular collaborator of both the DoT and TPB in the promotion of Philippine gastronomy. Many of the career executives in both agencies have become personal friends. To me, they shared how Teo and Montano abused and mismanaged their respective agencies. This is what I gathered.
ABUSE AND MISMANAGEMENT
Teo and Montano took credit for the 11% increase in tourism arrivals last year. In actuality, studies reveal that the increase was achieved on the back of the residual effects of the “Its More Fun in the Philippines” campaign and the inundation of low spending mainland Chinese visitors.
Insiders allege that the duo operated with no coherent marketing plan, no communications strategy, and no scheme to build upon the advances already made by previous marketing campaigns.
Instead, they implemented projects from the hip and spent taxpayers money freely according to their caprice.
In fact, it was only last March that the directors of the Tourism Promotions Board convened to flesh-out its working program. What should have been the first order of business was done 15 months after Montano took office. Wanda Teo is to blame as she sat as Chair of the TPB. Montano apparently never realized the need for a working program.
The first scent of rats began to reek when career employees of the TPB filed a complaint before the Presidential Action Center citing 24 wrongful, graft-ridden acts committed by Montano. This included sponsoring multimillion-peso concerts that had nothing to do with TPB’s mandate; sponsoring promotions sorties and paying himself a fee for his own musical numbers; hiring relatives for jobs already being performed by current employees; unauthorized travels to local and foreign destinations without itineraries; arrogant behavior towards the TPB staff and the stakeholders of the industry, among others.
The biggest gripe among the staff, however, was the fact that Montano was hardly present at the TPB office to manage its day to day operations. It was a ship without a rudder. If he was not traveling and entertaining friends and family in an exotic destination, he was at home. It was a known fact that Montano did not like to work in the decrepit TPB office since it did not “inspire” him.
Things unraveled when the Commission on Audit reported that Teo approved a P60-million sponsorship deal for a show on PTV-4 produced by her brother, Ben Tulfo, and cohosted by another brother, Erwin Tulfo. The graft-ridden deal was too blatant to be ignored.
In a pathetic attempt to divert public attention from her own case of graft, a black-ops campaign was launched to “expose” misuse of funds by tourism executives of the previous administration.
Graft charges were filed against former tourism secretary Ramon Jimenez and several other officials for allegedly conspiring to award and renew a tourism advertising campaign costing P1.2 billion.
The case holds no water, as evidence shows.
Teo’s caper to make this a yellow versus red affair didn’t work.
She lost the confidence of the president and got the axe. Along with her demise came the tarnishing of the Tulfo brother’s integrity.
In one fell swoop, the Tulfos lost their morale high ground to act as judge and jury of political personalities.
The DoT has a budget appropriation of P3.483 billion for the year, 10% of which must be appropriated to administration expenses, 10% for emergencies and contingencies, and the remaining 80% for promotional activities.
Of the promotional funds, Teo and Montano spent tens of millions in fashion shows and junkets for which they allegedly received kickbacks. The biggest corruption scheme however, was the P320-million Buhay Carinderia project, done in conjunction with a local events company, Marylindbert International.
While the contract clearly specified that the first tranche of sponsorship worth P80 million was to be released in four tranches after certain milestones were accomplished, records showed that full payment was actually made within one short month, prior to the milestones.
Exacerbating the situation was the fact that the P320 million project was awarded through a sponsorship scheme, not through a proper bidding exercise. There was no transparency in the process.
When the scam was exposed, Montano readily blamed Teo in typical crab mentality. He said it was all Teo’s scheme despite his signature appearing on the disbursement checks to Marylindbert.
Teo and Montano maintain that they never committed acts of graft. Their luxurious lifestyle today, however, bellies that assertion. They claim their lifestyles are afforded by their work prior to joining government — Teo as an outbound travel agent and Montano as an actor. Their claims have yet to be validated by the Ombudsman.
Teo and Montano were appointed to lead the DoT and TPB, respectively, not because they were the best and brightest, but because they were endorsed by political allies. It was a move that backfired. Not only have the duo marred the integrity of the Duterte administration, it also cast doubt on Malacañang’s ability to make unbiased decisions.
The Palace should take responsibility for this.
At the very least, it should make sure that Teo and Montano are thoroughly investigated by the Ombudsman and be made accountable for any act of graft and corruption. Only then can it redeem itself from the mess it created.
Finally, for goodness sake, stop presidential appointments based on political accommodations. It only leads to disaster.
 
Andrew J. Masigan is an economist