SC asked to nullify R836-M contract for driver’s license cards
The Supreme Court (SC) was asked yesterday to nullify the R836-million contract of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) for the supply of over eight million driver’s license cards with fiveyear validity for being an “anomalous transaction.”
Sought to be nullified was the 2017 LTO contract with NEXTIX, Demalog Identification Systems, and CFP Strategic Transaction Advisors joint venture in a petition filed by PartyList Rep. Aniceto Bertiz III of the Acts Overseas Filipino Workers Coalition of Organizations.
Bertiz’s petition was the second case brought before the SC in connection with the drivers’ license cards with five-year validity.
The first petition was filed last May by the Anti-Trapo Movement (ATM) and the case is still pending.
In his petition, Bertiz told the SC that the LTO cannot proceed with the P836-million contract because it did not have any allocation from the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
The lawmaker said that under Article 6, Section 29 (1) of the 1987 Constitution, “no money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.”
“If Congress had deliberately and purposely intended to appropriate public funds to be used as an expenditure for the LTO-Driver’s License Cards, it would have specifically and particularly approved an item of appropriation for the ‘production of drivers licenses’ as it purposely and deliberately did in the GAA 2013,” he said in his petition.
“In the absence of a specific and particular item of appropriation for the ‘production of driver’s licenses’ in the GAA 2016, Congress evidently and without nary a doubt deliberately determined and intended not to appropriate any public money for the procurement of driver’s license cards. Thus, GAA 2016 did not allocate a single centavo for procurement of LTO-Driver’s License Cards,” he stressed.
He asked the SC to nullify and stop the implementation of the contract “which includes the sale and conveyance of driver’s license cards and the collection of money” from motor vehicle and motorcycle drivers/owners and “disbursing and using public funds for the payment of suppliers.”
Named respondents in the petition were Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, National Treasurer Rosalia De Leon, Commission on Audit Chairperson Michael Aguinaldo, and LTO chief Edgar Galvante.