MANILA, Philippines — Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. appears to have been misinformed on his claim that a contractor stole the personal data of passport holders, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said.
Yasay said Locsin's statement that a contractor, whom he identified as French firm Francois-Charles Oberthur Fiduciare, ran away with data was "completely false and malicious."
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"The only reason, compelling reason I can see is because they wanted to deflect the real issue of the passport mess, which is awarding, the production of the passport from an end-to-end basis," Yasay told ANC's "Headstart".
The former DFA chief pointed out that Oberthur's contract was over when he took office in June 2016 but the French firm continued tp assist the Philippine government for free until 2014. This was under the term of former President Benigno Aquino III.
Yasay further explained that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas recommended to subcontract the personalization of passports to Oberthur in 2006 but the system was placed in 2009.
In 2015, the DFA awarded the production of the new passport system to APO Production Unit, a company under the Presidential Communications Operations Office.
APO then contracted United Graphic Expression Corporation for the production of the new passports, which Yasay claimed was illegal because there was no bidding.
"All of these have been inherited by me in 2016 so I told the president I am taking action about this and I will talk to the BSP and I will talk to the UGEC and I will talk to APO and see how could we remedy the situation," Yasay said.
Yasay reaclled his dilemma when he was supposed to approve the full implementation of the new passport system.
"I cannot approve it. If I disapprove it, however, beacuse it was illegally subcontracted then I can be held responsbible for the complicated problem that will result... On the other hand, if I just hoodwink the whole thing I could be accused of complicity of what is illegal," he said.
Yasay links passport data issue to rejection at CA
Asked why the contract with UGEC was sustained despite being illegal, Yasay claimed "some powerful members" of Congress intervened on the matter.
These members of Congress, who are also members of the Commission on Appointments, insisted that there was nothing wrong with the contract, according to Yasay.
"I said there was something terribly wrong with the contract, in fact, because APO and UGEC refused to be bound or sign the amended [memorandum of agreement] that I prepared, I canceled the contract," Yasay said in the television interview.
After canceling the contract, Yasay went to the BSP to direct them to restire the printing of the new passports, which the latter supposedly refused to do.
"When I went back to BSP, BSP said no and after that my confirmation came in and I was not confirmed," the former DFA chief said.
On March 8, 2017, the CA voted to reject the ad interim appointment of Yasay due to his failure to disclose the status of his citizenship.