IF there is a government agency that has established the highest level of notoriety in graft and corruption during the past two years, it has got to be the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM).
Originally conceived by the first President Ferdinand Marcos to rationalize government purchases of common-use supplies through economies of scale, the PS-DBM has become a platform for various departments to pass on to this agency the responsibility of buying supplies, along with the opportunity for corruption.
Marathon hearings of two Blue Ribbon Committees of the Senate, one led by Sen. Richard Gordon during the 18th Congress and the present panel led by Sen. Francis Tolentino, proved the scale of inefficiency, rapacity and greed of PS-DBM officials in at least two cases: the P42-billion Pharmally scandal in the purchase of COVID-19 protective items by the Department of Health, and the P2.4-billion overpriced laptops for teachers by the Department of Education.
Senator Tolentino noted that “the agency has, for several years already, been tainted with controversies in the performance of its mandate.”
‘Both the legislature and the executive department must act in concert to tackle the problem of corruption in government procurement, even as Senate and House investigations tend to desensitize us with details of pervasive official corruption.’
Following through the process that Senate investigations should really be in aid of legislation, Tolentino on Monday filed a bill seeking to abolish the PS-DBM, rather late in the day but still of great importance because no senator has come forward to do it.
Under Tolentino’s Senate Bill No. 1802, “all procurement of goods, including common-use supplies, materials and equipment, and infrastructure projects shall henceforth be undertaken by the respective departments, bureaus, offices, agencies, state universities and colleges, government-owned and/or -controlled corporations, and local government units” as the measure bats for the dissolution of PS-DBM.
In his explanatory note, Tolentino cited several observations found by the Commission on Audit in recent years, documenting how the bidding process became disadvantageous to the national government, especially when such procurement process was channeled through the PS-DBM.
Some of the notices of disallowance issued by state auditors include the unutilized fund transfers totaling P1.976 billion from the Department of Health (DOH) intended for COVID-19 supplies and equipment which remained unremitted to the National Treasury despite the lapse of the validity period, as well as the anomalous procurement of overpriced laptops for public school teachers of the DepEd.
According to the senator, though PS-DBM operates on its own income and does not receive any allotment from the national government, “the agency has, for several years already, been tainted with controversies in the performance of its mandate.”
Last week, Tolentino’s Blue Ribbon Committee report on the laptop controversy recommended the abolition of the PS-DBM and urged government departments, agencies, offices, and other instrumentalities to refrain from delegating procurement tasks and to conduct their own procurement as an exercise of their fiduciary duty to be accountable for public funds appropriated for their respective offices.
Meanwhile, another measure filed by Tolentino seeks to amend Republic Act No. 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act and provide for more stringent criteria for the eligibility of bidders in the procurement of goods and infrastructure projects for the government.
Both the legislature and the executive department must act in concert to tackle the problem of corruption in government procurement, even as Senate and House investigations tend to desensitize us with details of pervasive official corruption.
