Friday, October 12, 2007 City official denies loss of bidding files
A LAPU-LAPU City Hall executive decried reports that records pertaining to the allegedly overpriced purchase of personal computers in 2005 are missing.
The report (not in Sun.Star Cebu) was the product of a “misappreciation of facts,” said City Attorney Joseph Vincent Lim, who said the documents are there but are no longer in the City’s custody.
He said the records—bidding documents including the complete set of bid proposals submitted by ATX Enterprises and Global Chips Technologies—have been returned to the bidders, pursuant to procurement rules.
Rolando Duero, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza’s executive secretary and the incumbent head of the City’s bids and awards committee (BAC), went to the anti-graft office yesterday to set things straight.
Their worry is that the report makes it appear Lapu-Lapu City officials destroyed or hid the records of a transaction that is now under investigation.
Accompanied by Assistant City Attorney Michael Dignos, Duero went to see Ombudsman Director Virginia Santiago but, as the latter was in Manila for a seminar, met with Director Edgardo Canton instead.
Confidential
After a brief conference, Duero submitted a formal letter that, among other things, hinted that the anti-graft office leaked the supposed disappearance of the documents to the media, in violation of its own protocol.
“In due respect and deference to your office’s directive to observe the strict confidentiality of this investigation... we never gave our documents to the media. But, to our compete bewilderment and surprise, our response to the subpoena duces tecum has found its way to the media and, in fact, became the headline of a local publication today,” the letter read.
“We hope that fairness and equal protection shall also be accorded to the local government unit and its employees,” it added.
Canton said that associate graft investigators, led by Ombudsman Director Santiago, would do their best to locate all the records it needs, even if it has to secure it from other sources or agencies.
Premature
Local government units are mandated to securely keep the records of all transactions for five years, he added.
The premature destruction or loss of records is infidelity in the custody of government documents and is a Revised Penal Code violation.
And if the destruction or loss of the records hinders an investigation, it becomes obstruction of justice—a crime tackled by a special law.
“It isn’t even important if the destruction or loss is intentional,” Canton said.
Duero, in his letter, said his Oct. 3 answer to the anti-graft office’s Sept. 28 subpoena duces tecum clearly explains what happened.
“We have never in an instance claimed nor stated that the subject document of your subpoena duces tecum was lost or could not be found,” he said. Instead, he added, they narrated how they returned the bidding documents of ATX and Global Chips.
He attached a copy of his two-page Oct. 3 answer that cited Sec. 30.1, Rule 9 of the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 9184, the Government Procurement Act.
Unopened
The provision states that if a bidder is rated as “failed” or unqualified, the BAC shall “immediately return to the bidder concerned its second envelope unopened.”
“When the technical proposal of ATX Enterprises was found out to have an expired DTI license, which is number one in the checklist, the bid was declared a failure and the bid proposals, the opened technical proposal and the unopened financial proposal were returned to the said bidder,” Duero said.
“With regard to the Global Chips Technologies bidding documents, our record shows that the said bidder was not able to submit his bid proposals on time; thus, his bid documents were not retained by the City,” he added.
The anti-graft office is investigating the 2005 transaction pursuant to a complaint lodged by businessman Efrain Pelaez, head of Coral Point Educational Foundation Inc. and president of the Mactan Island Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Based on the complaint, the Lapu-Lapu City Government spent P23,476,500 or about P50,000 each for 470 computers that, at the time of the purchase, were allegedly worth less than half the unit price.
Only three suppliers—Kein Enterprises, ATX Enterprises and Global Chips Technologies Inc.—submitted bids. The BAC, according to Pelaez, “conveniently disqualified” ATX and Global, making Kein, which bid P23,476,500, the winning supplier.
The anti-graft office obtained records of Kein’s bid from the Commission on Audit and subpoenaed the City Government to provide the other two bids. (KNR)
