P400-million noodles to feed pupils one measly meal

Anti-“sick books” crusader Dr. Antonio Calipjo Go has taken up a new fight. His latest beef: why did the Department of Education purchase 19,418,880 packs of instant noodles last month? And why pay P427,215,360 for it, or P22 per pack, when the foodstuff retails for only P5-P15 depending on the brand or flavor?

The DepEd said the procurement is for its feeding program, given that good nutrition makes for better minds. Go correctly calls it wasteful. There are about 19 million public school children, so the noodles will feed them only one meal. Even if the order was for “fortified instant noodles with fresh eggs and malunggay,” one measly meal cannot nourish a poor child enough to be brighter in class.

Don’t all noodles have egg as ingredient, Go presses? So why include “fresh eggs” in the bidding notice? Are the pupils to be given one fresh egg each along with their noodles? Comes the clincher. A DZMM news report Wednesday quoted one of the losing bidders as saying “eggs” was inserted to disqualify all of them as ineligible. Only one favored bidder was left — who naturally won.

There’s clear anomaly in the cost, Go adds. The DepEd deal should have enjoyed a bulk discount. Yet the unit price of P22 is more than four times the tag at the corner sari-sari. The question arises: who made money again here? This is the second such purchase. In Oct. 2007 the DepEd also bought P284,127,840 worth of instant noodles. Presumably that too was overpriced. The question is what the heck the crook is doing it for. Maybe for a 2010 election run?

In Aug. 2008 the DepEd also placed an order for 50 million tablets of ferrous sulfate (iron supplement for anemia and pregnancy) worth P5 million. Plus, 500 otoscopes (to examine ears) worth P1 million. Plus, 75,000 sachets of “chrorella” shampoo (whatever that is) worth P900,000. Total approved budget: 6.9 million. A contract for the same items was bid out in Dec. 2007, then for P10,150,000. Here’s the catch, says Go. In the earlier purchase, 150,000 sachets of shampoo was also priced at P900,000, or P6 apiece. So why did the item double to P12 apiece in the second purchase only eight months later? Is the crook so brazen because he thinks he won’t get caught?

The four contracts cost the DepEd a total of P728 million, a figure reminiscent of the P728-million fertilizer fund scam that accompanied the 2004 election. But the point is this, Go says: “What have all these got to do with the education? Will long silky black hair compensate for a head without brain? Shouldn’t the DepEd focus on feeding minds and not stomachs?”

The DepEd has allocated P6.8 billion for “Food for School” and P2 billion for “Malusog sa Simula, Yaman ng Bansa” projects. Doctors in the social welfare or health department are in better position than politicos at the DepEd to determine what nutrition school children need. The DepEd money can be better used, Go concludes, to build classrooms, raise teachers’ pay, and of course correct those error-ridden textbooks.

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Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio has narrowed down his 2010 options to two: either to return to the priesthood or run for national office. So a search has begun for a moral successor to prevent gambling lords or grafters from capturing the capitol. Pampangos need not look far. One of their mayors and Panlilio’s supporter, Oscar Rodriguez of San Fernando, is their best choice. He has served the judiciary and legislature, and is now an able city CEO. Ask any contractor and he’ll say Ka Oca is the only one who doesn’t ask for kickbacks.

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This is to be Asia’s century, they say. Yet crises pockmark the “rising” continent. Sectarian hostility seethes in Pakistan. Civil strife rocks Iraq and Afghanistan. Famine grips Bangladesh and Burma. China is flexing naval muscle in seas east and south of mainland, and battering Tibet. Thailand is on the brink of civil war, while border skirmishing with Cambodia. The Philippines continues to lead the region in corruption. Worst de-stabilizer, because effects are global, is North Korea, which test-fired last week a long-range missile disguised as a satellite.

The rocket was a dud, landing uneventfully in the seas off Japan. But that North Korea launched it at all showed up its leader Kim Jong-Il to be a prickly brat. Months prior Kim tried to hide agricultural woes by bragging to unveil a new missile. Warned by America, Japan, South Korea and Russia to simmer down, Kim then harrumphed that he’d send up a satellite instead. North Korea has no such capability, and experts soon found out he was to shoot a rocket. (While space launches and ballistic missiles technically have the same body designs and propelling mechanisms, fuels are different. The first uses liquid oxygen, the second nitric acid. Kim’s propagandists claim that their satellite was successfully thrown into orbit, but radars monitored it falling into the sea.)

The UN Security Council deemed the firing a global threat, and told Kim off. In response he sniffed that he’ll break off from UN-backed nuclear deactivation talks. Truly a dangerous lunatic!

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