LIKENING the questioned outsourcing of pandemic-related supplies to two controversial agencies to asking a “clueless male to buy the best woman’s bra,” Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto has cautioned the Department of Health, which plans to spend P819 million to buy personal protective equipment (PPE) in 2022, not to repeat its mistake of transferring billions to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management or the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC).
The PS-DBM is now the focus of a Senate inquiry into the wholesale transfer to that office of P42 billion in DOH funds in 2020, for buying PPEs at the first peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Senators are also looking into other funds lodged with PITC.
The PS-DBM and PITC are semiautonomous agencies under the Departments of Budget and of Trade and Industry, respectively, and this setup of outsourcing procurement is seen to defeat the legal mandate to boost the capacity of the internal procurement offices in state agencies. Senators also objected to the parking of billions in funding in PITC, especially, to skirt a requirement to return unobligated funds to the National Treasury at year’s end.
On Tuesday, Recto recommended that the Duterte government order full disclosure of the specifications and “buy Filipino.”
The Senate President Pro Tempore said DOH plans to buy 758,700 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) next year at an average cost of P1,079 each.
The P819 million needed for the purchase has been included in the 2022 national budget.
In a statement, the senator prodded the DOH to “buy the PPEs and shun the trend of paying the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management [PS-DBM] or the Philippine International Trading Corp. [PITC] to do the procurement.”
The senator told the DOH itself to buy it, noting that its doctors and nurses are the ones that will use it, and therefore it is in the best position to know what exactly to buy.
Moreover, Recto noted that “asking PS [DBM] and PITC to buy is like asking a clueless male to buy the best woman’s bra.”
He added: “If DOH will do the procurement, it will save money from not having to pay a commission to PS or PITC, which could jack up costs by 5 percent.”