LRA explains bidding process

The Land Registration Authority (LRA) broke yesterday its silence on the controversy surrounding its P4-billion computerization program, saying the bidding for the project was transparent and above board.

LRA administrator Alfredo Enriquez dismissed complaints raised by the losing bidders that the bidding process was rigged in favor of Mega Data Consortium, a six-company consortium headed by a Filipino-Korean tie-up.

"The bidding was conducted in a very open and transparent manner," said Enriquez. "We followed the Build-Operate and Transfer (BOT) Law to the dot ."

The authority awarded the country's biggest computerization program last week to Mega Data Consortium, a business venture composed of the Mega Group of Computer Companies, LG-EGS systems, a firm which set up the world's first nationwide computerized land titling system in South Korea; Amalgamated Motors Philippines, CM Pancho Construction; and GEZ-Hongkong and Marconi Integrated Systems.

Enriquez said only Mega Data met all the requirements for the project, besting the bids of three other groups, namely the AMA Consortium (AMA); Stradec Unisys FF Cruz and Confac Consortium (SUFC) and the Photokina Marketing Corporation Consortium (PMC).

The project, aimed at computerizing the country's land titling system, will run for 13 years. Enriquez said it was simply impossible for anyone to influence the bidding process because the technical committee formed to evaluate the proposals split these up into parts so that an expert group in the committee-which included information technology experts from the National Computer Center could study only the area in the proposal that it had the necessary expertise on.

The process required experts on site preparation, operations and information systems.

"None of the expert groups knew how each proponent was doing overall until the results of the evaluation process of each area were consolidated," said Enriquez.

The LRA administrator said Photokina and the AMA group, the two proponents which had been harping about the alleged anomalous awarding of the contract, failed to meet the 90 percent standard compliance rating set by the technical committee.

According to him, in the first review of the proposals, only Mega Data passed. The LRA decided to be a little lenient and reviewed the results several times. After this, SUFC consortium also met the 90 percent requirement but was still behind Mega Data by a few points. The two other companies flunked even the re-reviews.

Both companies, Enriquez said, did not even meet the required on-site janitorial and system maintenance in all offices of Register of Deeds across the country, "In the first place," said Enriquez, "the company proposed a mainframe solution when the project specified an open-client server system."

The LRA wanted an open-client server system because the country is an archipelago with thousands of islands separated by wide expanses of water.

"With a mainframe system, if the system breaks down, the entire country goes down," he said. "The open-client server eliminates that problem because even if the central computer breaks down, the other computers will continue to operate."

AMA ranked second only to Mega Data in the area of information technology solution and failed to meet the site preparation requirement, which called for fully-equipped offices with security systems, power and water facilities and access control systems," he added.

The LRA chief also noted deficiencies on the part of Photokina in the following areas:

* Staffing: The project called for document scans, quality control, transactions monitoring, network and database administration, system and site maintenance and supplies. Photokina did not provide for this in its bid.

* Training: The introduction of new technologies would require at least 3,150 trained personnel. Photokina only provided for trainers, leaving the LRA hanging.