Tomas: is PhilGEPS for Cebu City only?

Is the mandatory registration of consultants with the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) applied all over the country, or is it only imposed in Cebu City?

To shed light on the matter, Mayor Tomas Osmeña asked the City Attorney’s Office to render a legal opinion on the matter.

“I have to get our legal office to look into that. It’s almost impossible to get PhilGEPS (accreditation),” he told reporters yesterday.

There are at least 20 consultants whose professional services were procured by the City Government over the last six months, or from July to December. Each of them has a monthly remuneration of P18,000.

The mayor alone has around 16 consultants, while all Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan councilors, Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella and Barug Team Rama Councilors Jose Daluz III, Edu Rama and Philip Zafra also have consultants each.

But following a legal opinion the City Attorney’s Office sent to lawyer Evangeline Abatayo, chairperson of the Bids and Awards Committee-Infrastructure, they will now have to get a registration number with PhilGEPS.

In a letter dated Nov. 24, Atty. Bernard Inocentes Garcia said that based on the 2016 Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Government Procurement Reform Act, the new requirements for highly technical consultants refer to the mandatory registration with PhilGEPS.

With this, the City Council asked the City Accounting Office to withhold the payment of the professional fees of all consultants while it is still determined if these have complied with the mandatory registration with PhilGEPS.

The move was made by Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia, a member of the Barug Team Rama bloc, during the regular session last Tuesday.

For next year, Garcia said he wants that all consultants procured by either the executive or legislative offices to secure their registration numbers.

Although he acknowledges the opposition councilor’s point, Mayor Osmeña lamented that Garcia was “doing the right thing for the wrong reason.”

“They are not fooling me. Nangita lang sila og sala. Sakto gyud na, but it’s because they have their own political agenda. Suya lang sila. If I gave them their consultants, do you think they will do that? Of course not,” he said.

Garcia and the rest of the Barug Team Rama councilors’ requests for a consultant were denied by the mayor earlier this year.

“As long as these people provide their services needed by the city, I have to push through with it. Remember (former mayor) Mike Rama had around 30 consultants. I only have about 16 so I am not abusing the position. In the end, we might have to follow the law but this is their way of sabotaging,” Osmeña said.