SCUTTLEBUTT

Personnel of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) are seeking the intervention of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Trade Secretary Cristina Roque in the ongoing crisis at the attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry.

In a Facebook post, an IPOPHL employee, whose identity is being withheld to protect him from repercussions, said their department currently has no officer-in-charge and the present director general is micromanaging every office.

“Micromanagement at its finest, no confidence in her staff. She is meddling in all transactions. She could have read the papers and listened to those who are more knowledgeable than she is. She questions subliminally the competence of the personnel. She even accuses personnel of disrespect,” the employee said.

The source said it is only under this director general that he has lost his appetite for work to the point that he feels tired just going to the office—which is why many personnel have already packed their things and left.

A DAILY TRIBUNE reporter told Nosy Tarsee that he was trying to get the phone number of IPOPHL’s current director general, Brigitte da Costa-Villaluz, but agency personnel told him they were ordered not to give her number to members of the media.

A separate source said DTI Secretary Roque is already aware of the crisis at IPOPHL, but she did not reply when asked how she would address it when asked by this paper.

Nosy Tarsee also learned from another source that the present director general is not media savvy.

The IPOPHL in previous years had been in constant communication with reporters covering the Trade and Industry beat to comment on various issues, particularly the annual US Trade Representative Watchlist review of the global state of IP protection and enforcement; the proliferation of fake and illicit goods in the country, as well as its programs to uplift the intellectual property system.

The source also said there are issues now in the Human Resources Department, whose personnel are being denied benefits, based on information from the employees’ association.

“How can these plantilla officers perform their duties if their benefits are withheld? These funds are savings and unutilized expenses. Even the salary increase of IPOPHL personnel is now sleeping at the Department of Budget and Management. It would be easy for her to negotiate or ask the DBM to release the funds, but she has so many excuses,” the source said.