Disqualification of paper firm from ARMM bid legal Comelec

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) reiterated that the disqualification of a paper company that claimed to have offered the lowest bids to supply election paraphernalia for the Aug. 11 polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is legitimate.

Atty. Jose Tolentino Jr., Comelec executive director and head of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), said that Advance Paper Corp. had violated bidding and procurement laws, resulting in its disqualification.

Advance Paper lost the contracts to supply registration forms used during the April 1 to 10 voter’s registration in ARMM to Forms Intl., Philand Industries Inc. and Consolidated Paper Products during a bidding last March 24.

Advance Paper claimed that their bid offers were the lowest but it was disqualified by the BAC.

It alleged that the government stands to lose some P8.5 million because of this.

According to Tolentino, the BAC found out that one of the major stockholders of Advance Paper was also a major shareholder of Advance Computer Forms Inc. which is already “blacklisted” from participating in any Comelec bidding.

Tolentino added that Advance Computer had allegedly presented “falsified documents” when it joined a bidding a few years ago.

Tolentino said that Advance Paper had submitted Security and Exchange Commission papers to supposedly prove that the stockholder in question was no longer part of the company.

But the SEC document was dated March 25, indicating that they submitted the general information sheet to SEC after the March 24 bidding.

Tolentino said Advance Paper also failed to submit its “largest single contract” that is equivalent to half the price of the contracts being bidded out by the Comelec.

The requirement is meant to ensure that contracts will be awarded only to reputable and financially stable bidders. 

The paper company yesterday asked Comelec chairman Jose Melo to investigate their disqualification.       – Sheila Crisostomo