ON PAPER IT MAY sound good and prudent that the Department of Tourism underspent by P655.78 million of its allotment of P3.27 billion in 2024. But the fact is, the DoT head that time Maria Christina Garcia Frasco only obligated P2.82 billion or 86.31 percent leaving an unobligated balance of P448.08 million or 13.69 percent.
Such underutilization of budget was the reason that the Department of Budget and Management did not heed the DoT’s clamor for more budget the following year when it received P3.14 billion, lower than what it got in 2024.
The DoT honchos persistently complained about the lack of funds to boost its marketing efforts and keep the Philippines on the radar of tourists abroad, noted Business Mirror.
The latest audit report of the Commission on Audit (COA) said: “Out of the total allotments received by DoT amounting to P3.27 billion in CY 2024, the amount of P2.82 billion, or 86.31 percent, was obligated, leaving an unobligated balance of P448.08 million, or 13.69 percent, while P2.17 billion, or 76.78 percent of the total obligations was disbursed, leaving an undisbursed balance of P655.78 million or 23.22 percent at year-end, thus, utilization of authorized budget was not fully maximized.”
The agency’s poor utilization of its budget was the possible reason the DoT-Office of the Secretary (Osec) only received a P3.14 billion budget in 2025, lower than in 2024.
Under this year’s General Appropriations Act, the DoT lobbied for and received some P1.15 billion in branding funds, double than that of 2025. This raised the agency’s total funds this year to P3.64 billion. It also has a separate allocation of P4.6 million under the Tourism Development Fund (TDF).
Former Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco had often blamed the agency’s low budget allocation for its inability to attract more foreign tourists, which last year reached 5.87 million, 1.34 percent less than in 2024. She was removed from the post last March 12 as complaints mounted on her alleged self-promotion efforts, instead of marketing the Philippines.
She has since been replaced by veteran trade diplomat, Ma. Bernadita Angara-Mathay, who has been proven to have the marketing chops to get Japanese businesses to invest in the country.
Improve Tactics, Expense Plans
The latest COA report likewise found that close to P150 million of the Notice of Cash Allocations (NCA) amounting to P3.11 billion were not utilized, and thus reverted to the Bureau of Treasury (BTr).
In both cases, COA told DoT management to maximize the use of available allotments (and NCAs) “by improving strategies, plans, and expenditure measures in the implementation and execution of programs and projects as well as prudent allocation of budgets to avoid accumulation of unobligated allotments and adverse effect on future budget levels.”
COA also asked DoT-Osec to instruct its Bicol Regional office “to facilitate the planning of a timely procurement/bidding process. This will ensure sufficient time to conduct a re-bidding in case of a failed bidding, allowing programs and projects to proceed as planned and preventing the reversion of cash allocations and ultimately delivering the benefits envisioned by the Program.”
The specific notation for Bicol was due to the region’s delayed, then failed bidding for the P100-million Hot Air Balloon project. Having no expertise and capacity to implement it, the office partnered with the Legazpi LGU instead. COA contends total disbursements to the LGU should only be P22 million as funds should be totally utilized for construction and services first.
P498M In Disallowances
The COA said In total, the DoT incurred P119.23 million in unsettled audit suspensions and P498.4 million in disallowances by end-2024.
The audit agency rendered an “unmodified opinion” on the fairness in the presentation of DoT’s financial statements for that year, meaning the financial records it submitted were reliable, but does not mean there are no issues with its operations.
Business Mirror identified the following COA observations:
Deviations from established laws, rules, and regulations concerning cash management by the DoT Central Office, the National Capital Region, Cordillera Administrative Region, as well as the Regional Offices of Central Luzon, Bicol, and Eastern Visayas, “thereby exposing government funds to risk of loss or misuse.”
These cover the liquidation of petty cash disbursements and accountabilities of administrative officers, and reclassification of transferred funds to the correct BTr account.
Some P171.66 million in funds that had been transferred to local governments, national government agencies, regional offices, and nongovernment organizations remained unliquidated between one and 27 years, despite the completion of their projects.
Lapses in the grant, utilization, and liquidation of cash advances, the largest amount of which were unsettled “past due cash advances” for the operations of the agency’s Foreign Offices, reaching P103.33 million, among others.
COA said the DOT failed to implement 54.78 percent of 115 audit recommendations in 2023, of which 32 were reiterated/restated in the 2024 report.