LIKENING the questioned outsourcing of pandemic-related supplies to two controversial agencies as asking a “clueless male to buy the best woman’s bra,” Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto has raised concerns over the Department of Health’s plan to spend P819 million to buy personal protective equipment (PPE). He said the DOH must not 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 Senate probers looking 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 there has been concern over how this setup of outsourcing procurement skirts the legal mandate to boost the capacity of the internal procurement offices in state agencies. Senators have also raised a howl over 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 noted that the DOH plans to buy 758,700 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) next year at an average cost of P1,079 each.
Recto noted that 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.”
Recto aired misgivings that doing so will likely take time and the items may be delivered after Covid is gone. “Kung ipa-pasa-buy mo sa dalawa, baka walang nang Covid, hindi pa nabi-bid,” he added.
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.”
At the same time, Recto reminded that the DOH could also “avoid delays in procurement by doing pre-procurement groundwork ahead of the enactment of the 2022 national budget.”
He noted that both the 2021 General Appropriations Act and the 2022 New Expenditures Program (NEP) have a section allowing early procurement activities for anticipated projects. “That is in Section 19 of the General Provisions of the NEP. It says there, ‘agencies may undertake early procurement activities as soon as the proposed national budget is submitted to Congress.’ But they should hold off the notice of award of contract until they have gotten the allotments,” Recto added.
At the same time, Recto recommended that the DOH publish the specifications and volume of the PPEs to be purchased in order to draw as many interested parties as possible. “Make public the details. As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he said.
World-class, Filipino-made
This, as Recto also prodded the Duterte government to buy from Filipino producers of world-class medical-grade coveralls, masks and other PPE.
“There is a capable and competent local PPE manufacturing sector whose products, if patronized by their own government, will save jobs and save lives,” he said, adding, “Instead of some “sweatshop from abroad cornering the contract, let Filipino companies supply it.”
In the same statement, Recto wondered: “Bakit ba imbis na tangkilikin ang sariling atin, na de-kalidad naman, mas gusto pa yung mga produkto na [Why is it that instead of supporting our locally made products which are of good quality, we prefer those with] foreign language markings?”
Reminding that “Philippine-made medical-grade masks, are being exported,” Recto added: “What is loved by other countries should not be officially snubbed here.”