P17 million DepEd Project BAC head laments 'trial by publicity'

CEBU, Philippines – “Media is unfair, we are experiencing trial by publicity,” thus said Judiana Corriente, chairperson of the Bids and Awards Committee of the Department of Education Region VII.

The BAC has been at the eye of the storm of a recent controversy where parents and teachers complained that a supplier delivered sub-standard items in a P17-million project.

Corriente said that they had already called the attention of the supplier, Gala Industries Inc., to do rectification and fix the defective chairs, desks and teacher’s tables that were delivered. This was done last February yet, before the story came out in the media.

Further compounding the issue of sub-standard items was the complaint of two losing bidders alleging favoritism by the BAC because Gala did not give the lowest bid for the project.

Gala reportedly bid P17,760,750 for the project, but two others — JEC Lumber Corporation and Ramagal Door and Sash Manufacturing, had lower bids of P17.228 million and P 17.350 million respectively.

JEC and Ramagal were however disqualified by the BAC for allegedly failing to comply with some requirements, alleged false statements and alleged poor performance in previous projects.

The BAC reported that in December 2005, the joint venture of JEC Lumber, Ramagal, and Diamond Interiors was awarded the DepEd school furnitures project for school year 2006-2007. The project was scheduled to be completed on April 2006, but the joint venture reportedly completed it only more than five months later.

The BAC used this as one of the factors to disqualify the two lower bidders.

Corriente said that the winning bidder is also required to put up a bond equivalent to 10 percent of the project cost for rectification of defects in the delivery.

She also reminded the school heads to go through the proper channels when they have complaints.

Meanwhile, an inspection team that went to the different schools where there were reportedly defective items delivered has noted that Gala has done well in rectifying the defects.

The team was composed of Gregorio Cyrus Elejordo, Gerry Mantos, Teonilo Ibarra and Fe Calagos.

It was also reported that those items that had cracks have been replaced. — Mark Z. Gantuangco/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)