Printing firm mulls raps vs NPO for blacklist

MANILA, Philippines - A Marikina City-based private printing firm said that the five year suspension or blacklist meted it by the National Printing Office (NPO) was illegal and warned that the agency’s officials faced criminal charges for issuing the blacklist.

Guillermo Sylianteng Jr., general manager of Ready Firm, Inc. (RFI), said the NPO has no jurisdiction over his company since RFI has stopped participating in public biddings held by the NPO, wherein it sub-contracts printing contracts given to it by government agencies.

Sylianteng said many government agencies have stopped giving their printing contracts to the NPO to sub-contract starting this year when they invoked provisions of Republic Act 9184, otherwise known as the Government Procurement Reform Act, which raised the illegality of the NPO’s practice of subcontracting printing contracts.

“They have no jurisdiction over me. They also do not have jurisdiction over the matter of our financial statements which they are using as basis for the blacklist,” Sylianteng said.

The NPO’s bids and awards committee (BAC), chaired by Eddie Barsaga Vista, in a resolution dated Dec. 1, had ordered RFI blacklisted and prohibited from joining its public biddings for five years for allegedly falsifying financial statements in order to evade taxes.

The NPO-BAC said it investigated RFI following a complaint by the Eastland Printing Corp., one of the NPO’s accredited security printers.

Sylianteng said he is preparing to file criminal charges against the concerned NPO officials responsible for the issuance of the blacklist, pointing out that acts of public officials that constitute violation of their jurisdiction was a criminal offense listed in the Revised Penal Code.

Previously, all government agencies go to the NPO to have their official accountable forms such as official receipts printed.

He said the NPO, by virtue of President Arroyo’s Executive Order 378, issued in 2004, lost its exclusive jurisdiction over the printing services requirements of government agencies.

Sylianteng said EO 378 amended EO 285 that created the NPO in July 1987, specifically to remove this exclusive jurisdiction over the printing of official accountable forms citing the need to immediately improve government printing services “to ensure that government benefits from the best services available from the market at the best price.”