Whitewash feared in DepEd probe of noodle scam

MANILA, Philippines – The whistleblower in the Department of Education’s alleged P700-million noodle scam voiced concern over a whitewash of the case now that Education Secretary Jesli Lapus has ordered an in-house probe.

Dennis Quido, sales manager of government supplier Kolonwell Trading, said Lapus’ recent pronouncements defending the consistent awarding of the DepEd’s contracts to a sole supplier of “fortified noodles with fresh eggs” show that he has already pre-judged the issue.

“Secretary Lapus has consistently defended the contracts and had even attacked our reputation to discredit our claims of irregularities. He has obviously made up his mind that there was nothing wrong with the awarding of the fortified noodles supply contract to Jeverps Manufacturing for the past several years as the consistent lone bidder,” Quido told The STAR in an interview.

He said they were hoping that Senator Manuel Roxas II would continue his Committee on Education’s probe on the P700-million contract even if Lapus has ordered a separate review of the school feeding program. Lapus has also deferred the procurement of 20-million packs of noodles worth about P427 million.

In a letter sent to Roxas, Lapus said the review would be done in coordination with independent experts to resolve the noodles’ nutritional contents, cost effectiveness and efficiency of the field implementation of the program.

Lapus said he had issued the review instructions to Undersecretaries Ramon Bacani, Vilma Labrador and Thelma Santos.

“As this is of the essence, please act with utmost dispatch so that the school feeding in the 13 food poor provinces can be implemented during this school year as scheduled,” read Lapus’s memorandum to the three DepEd officials.

In the past two hearings, the Senate education committee found that DepEd spent P285 million for the noodles in 2007, another P61 million for a repeat order last year, while P427 million was spent for the same project this year.

There were six deals, including a repeat order, amounting to roughly P750 million, with only Jeverps as the lone bidder in a span of five years, Roxas noted.