Drilon questions new Optical Media Board chief over agency's functions and request on confidential funds

On Friday, Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon questioned the Optical Media Board (OMB) chairman, former Malolos city mayor Christian Natividad on the significance of the OMB today, when the use of DVDs and CDs is already a thing of the past.

The OMB originally requested a budget of P90.6 million for 2021, but the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) only approved P70.1 million as the agency's allotment under the government's 2021 National Expenditure Program (NEP).

Photo credit: mb.com.ph

The Optical Media Board, formerly known as the Videogram Regulatory Board, is a national agency under the Office of the President of the Philippines which regulates optical media such as DVDs and videotapes, as well as data storage devices like flash drives and hard drives. It guards against the sale or distribution of pirated, unlicensed, and other illegal optical media and data storage products.

The OMB's task are already being carried out by the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation said Drilon.

“The NBI and the PNP have the cybercrime section function. They are police agents, law enforcement. Cybercrimes are basically under the NBI and the PNP,” he noted.

However, Natividad defended that OMB deals more on individuals or groups that steal intellectual property or programs covered by the intellectual property rights, including movies.

“We are more on the (hardware) and the OMB cannot act on cybercrimes because we are more on the protection of intellectual property rights,” Natividad says.

Natividad appealed to the senators requested for a P5 million budget as confidential funds, which the budget department had denied.

Why do you need confidential funds?

Drilon asked newly installed OMB chairperson and CEO Natividad during the hearing.

The OMB's share in the proceeds from the Metro Manila Film Festival was reduced from 20% to just 5% since 2010, Natividad explained. Because of this, the agency needs more funds "to pay the assets, the informants, and the other things that they will be needing for them to mobilize the law enforcement," he said.

Drilon expressed concern on the request, saying,

The reason I am raising this is that there is confidential funds all over the bureaucracy, and this amounts to over P4 billion. This is apart from the intelligence funds which is another P5 billion. Every office in this bureaucracy would ask for a confidential fund, intelligence fund, because this is the easiest way to liquidate these [funds] through what we call close-envelope system, wherein you just write on a sheet of paper how you spent the confidential fund, and that is already sufficient for the purposes of the Commission on Audit,

Drilon said.

Natividad sought understanding, saying the OMB has only 77 personnel in the whole country.

We will be needing augmentations for that, and that is just the request of the previous board to have confidential funds,

he said.

The OMB budget was deemed submitted to the plenary.

Last month, the agency confiscated P3.4 million worth of counterfeit storage media devices in Valenzuela City, and P1.1 million worth of pirated software in Manila.