SEN. Imee Marcos yesterday told the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to scrutinize the business records of one of the local partners of Miru Systems Co. Ltd. whose joint venture was awarded the multi-billion contract for the Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count (FASTrAC) project which will be used in the 2025 midterm elections.
During the hearing of the Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation on the procurement systems and providers to be used by the poll body for the 2025 national and local elections, Marcos said St. Timothy Construction Corp. has an expired license, citing information from the website of the Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB).
“Pambihira naman itong Comelec, P19 billion ang kontrata, kung sinu-sino ang bibigyan. (Comelec is unbelievable, we have here a P19 billion contract and we will just give it to anyone),” Marcos said.
In response, Comelec chairman George Garcia said that during the signing of the FASTrAC contract last week, he received a letter from St. Timothy but did not disclose the missive’s content. He, however, admitted that the letter, which came with the corporate secretary’s certificate, did not contain “vital information.”
“It did not contain the ID for purposes of verification… During the signing of the contract, the representative of St. Timothy was there, the lawyer, the former (acting) Secretary (Emmanuel Rey) Caintic of the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology). He was the lawyer of St. Timothy, and I personally asked that we will proceed with the signing. No question, no objection. And so I told him that there was a letter which was emailed a few hours before the signing and (he) said that we should proceed,” Garcia told the committee.
Marcos insisted St. Timothy should have a license to operate since it is a contracting company.
“Ngayon nung chineck namin sa PCAB online, regular license online, eh ang laki-laki doon expired ang kontrata at lisensiya nitong contracting company. Was it renewed? Does anybody know why are we are awarding to an expired contracting company? Maybe the Comelec knows. You are contracting with a non-existent construction company. Paano ba ito? (When we checked the PCAB website, regular license online, it was written in big bold letters that the company has an expired license. Was it renewed? Does anybody know why we are awarding [this contract] to an expired contracting company? Maybe the Comelec knows. You are contracting with a non-existent construction company? What do we do with this)?” she asked.
The PCAB online license verification website indicate that St. Timothy was first issued a license on July 9, 2015.
Garcia said he personally asked the executive director of PCAB before the signing of the contract about the matter and was told that “they did not blacklist St. Timothy.”
“It has ongoing contracts with government,” he added, even as he admitted that has yet to meet the listed authorized manager of St. Timothy identified in the PCAB website as a certain Roma Angeline Rimando.
Garcia said the report he received from the PCAB executive director was “different.” He did not elaborate.
Marcos said Garcia and other concerned officials should thoroughly look into the records of St. Timothy, adding that “its papers, it owners, its financial history, and apparently its contracting history, as well, sana sumipot naman sila kasi nahihirapan tayong lahat (I hope that they attend the hearing to enlighten us.”
Garcia assured Marcos that the poll body will submit all the documents it has on St. Timothy which was submitted by the joint venture.
During the signing of the contract, Garcia said that St. Timothy was represented by Caintic and Valeria Manahan, who was given a special power of attorney.
A staff member of Marcos said that Manahan was earlier present during the hearing but could no longer be located when the panel chairman asked her to testify before the committee.
“Nandito ba si Valeria Manahan? Baka kaya na niyo ipaliwanag ito. She manifested her presence earlier on behalf of St. Timothy, kanina nung nagro-rollcall tayo at nag-a-acknowledge ng resource persons. Wala na po? She was here kanina eh. Anyway, mukhang wala na dito
(Is Valeria Manahan here? Maybe you can explain this. She manifested her presence earlier on behalf of St. Timothy when we were having a roll call to acknowledge the presence of resource persons. She’s no longer here? She was here a while ago. Anyway, it seems that she is no longer here),” she said.
Marcos reminded Garcia to submit to the committee all the pertinent papers regarding St. Timothy to determine if the company is legally allowed to enter into a joint venture for the FASTrAC project.
