Imee files bills abolishing PS-DBM, PITC

Senator Imee Marcos on Thursday filed separate proposed measures calling for the abolishment of the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management and the Philippine International Trading Corporation.

In her Senate Bill 1122 or An Act Abolishing the Department of Budget and Management — Procurement Service, And For Other Purposes, Imee cited the passage of the Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act, which she said undermines the functions of the attached agency.

“The PS-DBM acts as a procurement arm of other government agencies for the procurement of common-use supplies, equipment, and infrastructure projects,” she said.

“However, the passage of RA No. 9184 or the ‘Government Procurement Reform Act’ undermines the mandate of the DBM-PS through the inclusion of relevant provisions that seek to strengthen the procurement service of national government agencies,” she added.

This, after the PS-DBM had become the center of controversy anew over its involvement in the procurement of alleged laptops for the Department of Education last week.

Marcos also questioned the PS-DBM’s practice of reselling equipment and supplies to national government agencies that funded their procurement.

She emphasized that the procurement services of national government agencies should instead be strengthened, in accordance with GPRA.

She also called for the abolishment of the PITC through Senate Bill 1123, for the same reason.

“In addition to its mandate being undermined by changes in national policies, the PITC has dealt with issues regarding the exercise of their mandate in the previous years,” Imee said in the explanatory note of the bill.

She said in the 2020 Annual Audit Report of the PITC, about P11 billion of funds were transferred from 2014 to 2020 by various source agencies remain unutilized as of 31 December 2020.

“There are reports of source agencies using the interest of money transferred to the PITC to generate savings, which are used by the source agency to fund bonuses, among others,” she said.

She added: “The original purpose of the PITC was to facilitate trade between socialist and other Centrally Planned Economy Countries, like the USSR and China at the time, but only Cuba and North Korea remain as CPECs.”