Senate OKs bill overhauling gov’t procurement, bidding

The Senate approved on third reading on Monday night a landmark anti-corruption bill which, Sen. Edgardo Angara said, is expected to arrest the reported P22-billion annual loss in government funds due to fraud-ridden state procurement procedures, biddings and awards.

The Government Procurement Act, according to Angara, its principal sponsor, represented "the biggest and the boldest initiative ever taken by the Senate to help stamp out the menace of official corruption."

The measure, he said, would overhaul the rules in the procurement of goods and services and in the biddings and awards of government infrastructure projects.

The Senate committee on constitutional amendments, revision of codes and laws and electoral reforms, which Angara chairs, sponsored the measure, which was drawn from three bills filed by Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda and Senators Robert Jaworski and Sergio Osmeña III.

Angara said government biddings and awards are so tainted that "the stench of corruption is the only constant in our public life today."

The bill mandates the holding of simplified, open and transparent biddings in the procurement of supplies, hiring of consultants and award of infrastructure projects.

It will also scrap the lengthy and fraud-prone practice of holding pre-qualification of contractors through the pre-qualification, bidding and awards committee. In its place, all government agencies shall use eligibility checks to broaden the pool of bidders and get competitive prices.

Under the bill, all bids shall be posted on the websites of the government agency handling the bidding and award and of the Government Electronic Procurement System (G-EPS).

The bill also eliminates the present practice of prescribing a floor price for government contracts, in favor of an approved ceiling price for all projects up for public bid. Under the proposed rules, all bids above the ceiling price are automatically rejected.

The measure also imposes a five-year warranty on civil works done by government contractors to make sure that no substandard projects are carried out.

In a statement, Angara said the P22-billion yearly losses due to fraud-ridden procurement procedures, biddings and awards could translate into "520 million textbooks or 63,000 new classrooms for public education."

Angara quoted a World Bank report as saying that the Philippines has lost $48 billion to corruption over the past 20 years, an amount enough to cover the country’s external debt.