THE Makabayan bloc has filed House Resolution No. 189 seeking a congressional investigation into the Department of Education’s purchase of outdated and overpriced laptops in 2022.
Party-list Reps. France Castro of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Arlene Brosas of Gabriela, and Raoul Manuel of Kabataan want the committee on good government and public accountability to look into the P2.4 billion procurement that was flagged by the Commission on Audit (COA).
“It is the primordial duty of the members of the House of Representatives to uphold the interests and welfare of the Filipino people against inefficiency and corrupt practices. The government should ensure the access of teachers and students to quality programs and services, especially amid the pandemic, economic crisis, and ailing educational situation,” the lawmakers said.
The militant lawmakers said the government did not only waste the people’s money for purchasing expensive yet outdated laptops, “it also deprived thousands of teachers of gadgets that could have helped them implement distance learning.
“From 68,500, the number of intended beneficiaries was reduced to 39,583 public school teachers. Moreover, the 39,583 teachers suffered from the worse performance of the laptops in performing their tasks,” the lawmakers said.
The resolution stressed it was the first time that the DBM-PS purchased overpriced goods on behalf of a government agency, noting that in 2020, the COA also found out that DBM-PS awarded Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corporation contracts worth P8.68 billion for the purchase of overpriced personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing kits for the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the COA in its annual audit report, instead of utilizing its own Bidding and Awards Committee (BAC), the DepEd coursed the procurement through the DBM-PS.
“The COA stated that the technical specifications ‘required by the DepEd did not intend to procure a laptop computer equipped with an Intel Core Celeron, the most low-end type of Intel processor in the market,’” the lawmakers said. “According to the DepEd’s Agency Procurement Request (APR), the price per unit of a laptop is only P35,046.50. However, the DBM-PS, after it conducted a market survey on March 26, 2021, recommended a unit price of P58,300, which the DepEd approved.”
The Makabayan bloc said the DepEd should be made to explain why it agreed to DBM-PS’ recommended price even if the DepEd, in June 2020, also engaged the services of the DBM-PS for the procurement of faster model laptops with a price of only P32,500 per unit.
The COA report also noted that in May 2021, the DBM-PS also conducted a bidding for a mid-range type of laptop with a unit price of P45,431.20.
“Not only that the price is cheaper, the performance of the laptop is faster and has better specifications than the laptop procured by the DepEd during the same month,” the lawmakers said.
