MANILA - A civil society group has questioned the proposed increase in the budget of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) for 2019.

In a letter, Let’s Organize for Democracy and Integrity (LODI) asked the House Appropriations Committee to "use a fine-toothed comb to check and double check the proposed 2019 budget of the PCOO, and compare it with the 2017 and 2018 budgets."

It noted that the agency sought a budget of P1.41 billion for 2019, up from the current P1.38 billion.

The letter was signed by LODI steering committee members Inday Espina-Varona and Tonyo Cruz, and was addressed to House appropriations committee chairman Karlo Nograles.

LODI, in its letter, raised questions for the government communications agency for its budget hearing at the House panel.

“Taxpayers bear the burden of paying for the PCOO’s work, whether it is done, not done, or not done well by the agency. It is the right of citizens to ask questions and a duty of Congress to do the same as the representatives of our people," it said.

LODI’s letter was submitted by Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate in the agency’s budget deliberations Thursday.

The budget, however, was submitted to the plenary after Zarate’s interpellation, which touched only on LODI’s question about hate speech on government social media platforms.

The government agency has come under fire several times for its blunders, most recently the controversial federalism video of Communications Assistant Secretary Margaux "Mocha" Uson.

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