After presiding for almost eight hours the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee public hearing last Thursday (Sept. 15), Senator Francis “Tol” Tolentino was extremely dismayed at how their inquiry on the alleged “overpriced and outdated laptops” procured by the Department of Education (DepEd) got played on online media. In particular, Tolentino noted the “breaking news” that online Twitter carried at the end of their third Senate hearing on the controversial “pricey” laptops.
Sen. Tolentino questioned why the online news stories centered on a dead lawyer who was included in the reported “guest list blunders” at the resumption of its hearing. It turned out the notary public, lawyer Jose Crisologo, had already passed away. The late lawyer supposedly signed the notarized memorandum of agreement (MOA) on the DepEd’s P2.4-billion laptop procurement deal. A lawyer by profession, Tolentino pointed out that Crisologo was invited to attest to the authenticity of the notarized documents.
However, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Secretariat that invited Crisologo was obviously not aware of the death of the lawyer. The Secretariat did a disservice to the Senate committee for not exercising due diligence in doing this task. Attending the public hearing, Senator Jinggoy Estrada later confirmed that Crisologo was indeed dead. Sen. Estrada shared the information he got from the late Crisologo’s brother who turned out to be former Quezon City Congressman Bingbong Crisologo. In response, Tolentino instructed the Committee Secretariat to secure a copy of the death certificate of Crisologo.
Tolentino maintained though that media should report about the “more substantive” information elicited from the live resource persons who appeared and testified under oath at their Senate hearing. He lamented these more significant matters brought to light were ignored and glossed over by media.
Adding to the boo-boos that day of the Committee Secretariat was inviting the wrong experts to shed light on the technical specifications of the laptops. They thought the experts of the Cybercrime Investigation and Assessment Unit of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) could help enlighten about computer hardware specs. Had the Secretariat first checked with the NBI Cyber unit, they would have been told they are more into the “software” aspects of the information technology (IT) world.
So when Tolentino started asking these technical questions, the cybercrime investigators admitted they cannot answer competently because such were not within their area of expertise. They suggested to the Senator that the rightful experts to call are from the Bureau’s Digital Forensic Laboratory.
Thus, the media reports about this Senate hearing were mostly about these blunders despite the exhaustive and incisive questions done by Tolentino, Estrada, and the other Senators who attended that public hearing.
Let us indulge Sen. Tolentino on the more substantive discussions during that public hearing. One of the companies disqualified from the bidding in the laptop deal, Advance Solutions Inc. (ASI) had been invited and got to participate in the discussions. Only ASI was asked to elaborate on the details of its disqualification.
None of the other firms which submitted losing or failed bids were queried by the committee. Why or why not? While the ASI representative was made to participate in the discussion the other qualified bidders, especially the winning firm, were not given a chance to respond.
During the committee’s previous hearing on Sept. 8, another ASI representative was asked about a technical term used by the DepEd in specifying its requirements under the laptop contract in question. This was odd because the question could have been better answered by an independent IT expert not involved in the controversy.
Sen. Estrada raised the possibility that ASI could have been “sourgraping” because it did not bag the P2.4-billion laptop contract. And to its consternation, a “new player” got the supply deal instead. Estrada had a valid point. Even curiouser, ASI was among the companies uncovered by the committee for seemingly “favored” by the DepEd for having purportedly cornered several DepEd contracts for laptops and its other IT requirements in the past.
Aside from ASI, Sen. Estrada revealed during the hearing that only four other suppliers have been awarded billions of pesos in contracts by the DepEd to fulfill its computer and IT requirements. These are Columbia Technologies, Inc., Reddot Imaging Philippines, Inc., Techguru Inc. and Girltekki Inc. Sen. Estrada raised another logical observation about the DepEd’s habit of calling for repeat orders from this “favored” list of suppliers. He feared this could result to the illegal practice of splitting contracts. And by doing so, public bidding can be done away with, the Senator pointed out.
Also under question is the grant of “use immunity” to DepEd’s procurement director Marcelo Bragado who has been placed on “floating” status. Bragado is the Committee’s “whistleblower” on this questioned IT deal but who has gone into hiding, Tolentino disclosed.
Tolentino was only too thankful though to his fellow Senators like Estrada, Sherwin Gatchalian, and Senate minority leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III who sat down with him at the public hearing to constitute a quorum. Like all other Senators, they are also busy attending to other public hearings, including on the proposed 2023 budget bill, taking place at the Upper Chamber at the same time.
The Senators, however, agreed to pursue further the suspicious transactions that would hopefully end such highly irregular IT deals at the DepEd.
Our public school teachers supposedly being given low-end “pricey” laptop was bad enough. Our Filipino schoolchildren deserve better than being ranked the lowest quality of education in this part of the world.
This should give a clean slate to Vice President Sara Duterte – as the concurrent DepEd Secretary – to improve upon the “blended learning” in our country’s basic education.