Palace exec: Rappler's article clearly made to shame Andanar's 10 trips to abroad
Palace executive Mon Cualoping took to Facebook to express his disappointment over a Rappler article that tackled the many outside-the-country trips that Presidential Communication Operation Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar had, calling it “excessive”.
In the post, Cualoping said that a public servant’s life is indeed in the limelight of public scrutiny and that receiving criticisms are natural. In addition to this, he said that while the people have a right to criticize, public servants also have the right to respond to criticisms.
Mon Cualoping and Bong Go
President Duterte and Mon Cualoping
Cualoping
says that the article was clearly made to shame Andanar for what he has been
doing, and this, according to Cualoping was unfair and biased.
He
goes on to say that to his knowledge, 6 out of the 10 trips that Andanar has
was paid for by his personal money or sponsored by foreign groups. He adds that
the trips Andanar had were not for vacation but for government purposes.
Cualoping then goes on to clarify and list down the trips that Andanar made and his corresponding roles and achievements.
Concluding his post, Cualoping said that they have been working hard in the PCOO and they hope that the public, along with the media be fair to them.
Read the whole post here:
"As public servants and workers in Government, we are open to public scrutiny. Our lives are an open book, our actions judged - fairly and more often than not, unfairly.
There are things we take sitting down, after all, criticisms are par for the course. But there are things we have to respond to - and as part of the process of discourse, we in the Government also have the right to respond.
Yesterday, I read an article from Rappler which bothered me a lot because it was short of saying that our PCOO Secretary Martin Marfori Andanar must face the same fate of the other officials relieved of their posts on corruption issues. Clearly, there was an intent to put a good man down. I find the article unfair and slanted to sway public opinion against the Secretary and the PCOO.
From my knowledge, 6 out of the 10 trips of the Secretary were personally paid for and/or part of sponsored trips by foreign bodies.
What wasn’t written was that of those 10 trips, two were personally paid trips to Australia, a China sponsored trip to Suzhuo for the ASEAN-China Information Summit, a Making All Voices Count sponsored trip to UK for an Open Government event at Brighton University. UAE was a stopover from the same UK sponsored trip.
At the UAE, the Secretary met with distressed Filipinos at the Consulate. Paris was also part of the UK sponsored trip and was only for a day to meet with the members of the Filipino Community who asked for the Secretary’s presence to clarify issues about responding to negative press in Europe.
The article failed to mention the Secretary’s successful facetime with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Head of Communications, who gave important insights of UK’s Great Campaign - of which the learnings are now being applied as we embark on the journey to develop and launch the Philippine Brand campaign.
Further clarification on the other trips:
Paris 2016 Open Government - The Freedom of Information (FOI), a centerpiece project of the Duterte administration, in the Philippines was just in its infancy and as the proponent (yes, ladies and gentlemen, Secretary Andanar was the one who pushed for it) of Executive Order No. 2, the Secretary was naturally invited together with Budget Secretary Ben Diokno and Senator Grace Poe.
Malaysia 2016 - The Duterte Administration was just two months old and Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza wanted the Secretary to work closely with him since the Peace Process with the Bangsamoro was a cornerstone policy of PRRD. Secretary Dureza wanted to ensure that there were no stones unturned as far as media coverage was concerned. That prompted the presence of the Secretary.
USA - The President personally gave Secretary Andanar and National Security Secretary Esperon the go signal to attend the Trump Inaugural. And to make the trip more worthwhile, the Secretary, as part of his mandate, engaged with media institutions based in New York like CBS, NBC, New Yorker, and the Filipino Community in the East Coast. He also granted interviews to Filipino Community Media in the West Coast and the Filipino Community in Los Angeles to get the pulse of our kababayans in that side of the US. If you may recall, those were very tumultuous times as far as US Media was concerned, them attacking President Duterte and our Government almost on a daily basis.
Hong Kong APAC Literacy Group Event 2017 - It was an event co-sponsored by Facebook, and the Secretary attended upon the invitation of the social media giant. It was a perfect time to network with APAC publishers given the widespread fake news phenomenon at that time.
We in the PCOO take pride in the accomplishments we’ve done these past 19 months, and we are also very humbled by the enormity of the problems and inspired by the solutions on how to serve the Filipinos better.
We ask for fairness."
***
Source: Facebook
Cualoping then goes on to clarify and list down the trips that Andanar made and his corresponding roles and achievements.
Concluding his post, Cualoping said that they have been working hard in the PCOO and they hope that the public, along with the media be fair to them.
Read the whole post here:
"As public servants and workers in Government, we are open to public scrutiny. Our lives are an open book, our actions judged - fairly and more often than not, unfairly.
There are things we take sitting down, after all, criticisms are par for the course. But there are things we have to respond to - and as part of the process of discourse, we in the Government also have the right to respond.
Yesterday, I read an article from Rappler which bothered me a lot because it was short of saying that our PCOO Secretary Martin Marfori Andanar must face the same fate of the other officials relieved of their posts on corruption issues. Clearly, there was an intent to put a good man down. I find the article unfair and slanted to sway public opinion against the Secretary and the PCOO.
From my knowledge, 6 out of the 10 trips of the Secretary were personally paid for and/or part of sponsored trips by foreign bodies.
What wasn’t written was that of those 10 trips, two were personally paid trips to Australia, a China sponsored trip to Suzhuo for the ASEAN-China Information Summit, a Making All Voices Count sponsored trip to UK for an Open Government event at Brighton University. UAE was a stopover from the same UK sponsored trip.
At the UAE, the Secretary met with distressed Filipinos at the Consulate. Paris was also part of the UK sponsored trip and was only for a day to meet with the members of the Filipino Community who asked for the Secretary’s presence to clarify issues about responding to negative press in Europe.
The article failed to mention the Secretary’s successful facetime with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Head of Communications, who gave important insights of UK’s Great Campaign - of which the learnings are now being applied as we embark on the journey to develop and launch the Philippine Brand campaign.
Further clarification on the other trips:
Paris 2016 Open Government - The Freedom of Information (FOI), a centerpiece project of the Duterte administration, in the Philippines was just in its infancy and as the proponent (yes, ladies and gentlemen, Secretary Andanar was the one who pushed for it) of Executive Order No. 2, the Secretary was naturally invited together with Budget Secretary Ben Diokno and Senator Grace Poe.
Malaysia 2016 - The Duterte Administration was just two months old and Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza wanted the Secretary to work closely with him since the Peace Process with the Bangsamoro was a cornerstone policy of PRRD. Secretary Dureza wanted to ensure that there were no stones unturned as far as media coverage was concerned. That prompted the presence of the Secretary.
USA - The President personally gave Secretary Andanar and National Security Secretary Esperon the go signal to attend the Trump Inaugural. And to make the trip more worthwhile, the Secretary, as part of his mandate, engaged with media institutions based in New York like CBS, NBC, New Yorker, and the Filipino Community in the East Coast. He also granted interviews to Filipino Community Media in the West Coast and the Filipino Community in Los Angeles to get the pulse of our kababayans in that side of the US. If you may recall, those were very tumultuous times as far as US Media was concerned, them attacking President Duterte and our Government almost on a daily basis.
Hong Kong APAC Literacy Group Event 2017 - It was an event co-sponsored by Facebook, and the Secretary attended upon the invitation of the social media giant. It was a perfect time to network with APAC publishers given the widespread fake news phenomenon at that time.
We in the PCOO take pride in the accomplishments we’ve done these past 19 months, and we are also very humbled by the enormity of the problems and inspired by the solutions on how to serve the Filipinos better.
We ask for fairness."
***
Source: Facebook
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