P1-billion DENR budget proposal for computers bared

MANILA, Philippines - Pampanga Rep. Anna York Bondoc is wondering whether the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is planning to reforest the country’s denuded forests with personal computers.

Bondoc raised this question during deliberations of the House comittee on appropriations last week after uncovering an allocation of P1 billion in the proposed budget of the DENR for the purchase of about 50,000 computers, software and web cameras, which is more than twice the number of the agency’s employees based on the Department of Budget and Management’s staffing summary for this year.

The apparently anomalous allocation was uncovered during deliberations of the House committee on appropriations last week on the DENR’s proposed budget for next year.

Some lawmakers viewed the appropriation as “scandalous” considering the failure of the agency to implement more practical, cheaper, and lasting measures to protect the country’s resources.

“The DENR could have allocated the P1 billion for reforestation and other environment-saving and protecting programs that would really have lasting benefits for nearly all sectors, including the economy, as well as save lives,” Bondoc said.

The senior lawmaker is also vice chair of the House appropriations committee.

She noted that in the National Expenditure Program submitted to the House of Representatives, last year’s budget for reforestation was P900 million while the allocation for computers was P522 million.

For 2011, reforestation allocation was hiked to only P1.3 billion but the budget for computers and IT equipment nearly doubled.

DENR Undersecretary Demeterio Ignacio told lawmakers during the hearing that the P1 billion will be used to purchase software, web cameras and computers for DENR offices.

It was not clear what the huge number of computers will be used for.

Ignacio admitted that DENR officials paid Microsoft Corporation some P80 million as software licensing fee to make the agency the first government office to use “legal software.”

Bondoc said she found it unacceptable that 25 percent of the DENR capital outlay will go to software and computers.

She also hit the officials for immediately agreeing to pay the P80-million licensing fee “since open source software is free and being used extensively by foreign governments” especially in South America.

Bondoc said that the DENR should have pilot-tested the software system first in a few offices before immediately purchasing it, as it might not work effectively.

She cited the case of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which is now in a legal battle with IBM over a failed information system that crippled the pension fund for several months, forcing it to tediously process transactions manually that adversely affected hundreds of thousands of pensioners.

Batangas Rep. Tomas Apacible, meanwhile, warned that the DENR’s proposed computerization could end up as another “NBN-ZTE” scandal, referring to the botched $329-million national broadband network (NBN) project of the Arroyo administration.

Bondoc asked Environment Secretary Ramon Paje to submit to the panel all documents pertaining to his agency’s computerization program.