Why bid out two contracts to purchase same items?

ICANNOT help but react to two paid advertisements of the Department of Education which came out in the Sept. 16 issue of the INQUIRER. The ads were an “Invitation to Bid for the Contract to Mass Produce, Supply and Deliver Science and Mathematics Equipment to 3,510 Public High Schools.” The approved budget for the two contracts adds up to the staggering amount of more than P780 million, which is only P220 million shy of P1 billion.

In the first place, why were the contracts broken up into two when both are ordering the same items? Why are the specifications not specific, not precise and not particular? What, for instance, are “Market Items” (“Earth/Space Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics”), the total stupendous cost of which is P546 million? Also listed under “Market Items” in the second contract are these two totally cryptic entries: “Integrated Science (66 items) and Chemistry (64 items),” costing P88 million. What the hell are being ordered at the sheer improbable cost of P634 million?

Appearing under the column titled “Mass Production” are descriptions of various science equipment and apparatus such as transformers and light sources. Under the column next to it, titled “Number of Items,” appears the single figure “32.” The last column shows the total approved budget for these 32 items, which is P98 million. One “item” therefore costs P3 million. Isn’t that too much? How can 32 items be distributed equally among 2,966 schools?

I’m asking simply because I’m confused as to what the two ads are saying. Reading (being basically a matter of interpretation) something as unspecific and unclear as the particulars of these two ads allows for as many interpretations as there are readers. To spend such a humongous amount on something which isn’t apparently and manifestly explicit or definite is precisely what’s wrong. When we ask our househelp to buy tuyo for us, it is incumbent upon us to give her exact and detailed instructions as to what kind of dried fish we want, the size, the degree of saltiness, the provenance ( tuyo from Bataan is best), the quality ( buo ang kaliskis) and the price. And yet here we are, ordering something that will cost government close to a billion pesos and the specs are as general, unclear and unspecific as they are in these two ads! Because the “Light Source” could be anything from candle, firefly or sun, shouldn’t it be made clearer? Was the vagueness perhaps intentional?

To be truly transparent, we must see to it that doubt has no way of insinuating itself into the picture. The catchall term “Market Items” may imply a million things other than what the DepEd may be intending to buy, because tuyo, pork, bathtubs, Montblanc ballpens and fake fertilizers can all be categorized as “Market Items.” Let all government Bids and Awards Committees be guided by the sage advice of the good mayor of Seoul, South Korea, Park Won Soon, the recipient of the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service, who said: “Mildew grows in damp places. Corruption prospers under the umbrella of secrecy. Disclose everything and all will be clean.”

To be truly transparent, we must see to it that doubt has no way of insinuating itself

into the picture