The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) has placed a budget ceiling to regulate the spending for contact of service (COS) personnel after the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged its hiring of these workers last year.

These contractual workers, occupying "highly technical posts" in production and creative fields, have also been required by the PCOO to submit a detailed accomplishment report.

The Commission on Audit (COA) recently questioned PCOO’s P70-million hiring of 375 contractual employees in 2020 due to lack of guidelines on such hiring, reason for the need to get these workers, among others.

The PCOO led by Secretary Martin Andanar has already submitted its response to COA and defended the hiring of the contractual workers. These contractuals were reportedly hired to augment the manpower needed for information dissemination during the pandemic.

"In order to regulate the expenditure for Contract of Service (COS) personnel employment, the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) has established a budget cap for each of its units," the PCOO said in a statement, without stating the amount.

"The PCOO required also COS, JO (job order), and purely work from home personnel to submit their accomplishment report with actual and detailed tasks and providing a template to present their report," the department added.

The PCOO explained the contractual workers were hired "due to the lack of plantilla positions and the fact that the current personnel complement is not capable to perform duties and responsibilities required."

Among the contractual workers tapped were producers, photographers, videographers, video editors, drone operators, animators, graphic artists, multimedia artists, sound design editor, streaming operator, and radio production assistant.

“To stress the point, the delivery of the services of the PCOO especially during the time of the pandemic are considered very crucial and the hiring of COS personnel is essential in order not to hamper the delivery of our basic services and pursue our mandate, as the premier communications arm of the Executive Branch, in engaging and involving the citizenry and mass media in order to enrich the quality of public discourse on all matters of governance and build a national consensus thereon,” the PCOO said.

Following the COA report, the PCOO has set rules on the hiring of additional personnel under contract of service. The request for hiring of COS personnel must include reason for hiring, source of funds, updated table of organization, job description, determination whether office or output-based, and a Certificate of Availability of Funds (CAF) prior to the approval of the employment. The PCOO’s Personnel Section would then make a recommendation based on the exigency of the service to avoid redundancy.

Around 34 positions have also been opened this year with preference for qualified current COS and JO personnel. PCOO also started to implement a reorganization plan to streamline its services.

With the hiring of COS personnel, the PCOO said more information dissemination programs have been implemented to support the government's pandemic response as well as vaccination program.

Among the communication projects are Laging Handa campaign, Cabinet Report, Duterte Legacy, Network Briefing News, Laging Handa Dokyu: The VAXplainer, Virtual Presser, and Virtual Reporting Tour.