Angara pushes amendments to procurement law

SEN. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara has raised the need to amend the 20-year-old Government Procurement Reform Act (GPRA) to improve public service further and eliminate corruption.

The senator said he was confident that the amendments to the GPRA would lead to “greater efficiency in the implementation of projects, purchase of goods and supplies and reducing, if not eliminating, avenues for corruption.”

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance sponsored the committee report on Senate Bill (SB) 2593, paving the way for the start of debates in plenary.

Among the amendments pushed is the requirement for agencies to institute better planning and early procurement activities.

The senator said SB 2593 was a priority measure identified by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council.

“The administration is well aware of the problems with public procurement, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself has highlighted the importance of pursuing further reforms in the GPRA,” Angara said on Tuesday.

In his last State of the Nation Address, the President said that such amendments were needed to make public procurement more attuned to the changing times in a bid for government “not only to become more effective, but more, to become truly transformative.”

The amendments to the GPRA are expected to “not only streamline the process of government procurement but also to make it more effective,” Angara said in a statement.

He said GPRA would pave the way for a more inclusive process by ensuring equal opportunities for big and small players alike.

“We have seen agencies whose procurement of basic supplies take an inordinate amount of time to complete,” Angara said.

“There is a lack of true competition among bidders, and oftentimes agencies are unable to undertake the procurement of goods due to poor planning, or they are tied up by the procedures under the law,” he said.

He said a 2019 World Bank analysis of Philippine procurement data found that if the Philippines were to employ better procurement strategies and policies, it could save up to 29 percent of the total procurement spend.