Kapampangan lawyer Enrico Quiambao, counsel for Gilzael Vida representing the Joint Venture of Annex Inc. and Guetebruck PTY., said negotiated procurement would result in “the permanent and irrevocable loss of public funds, without the legal requirements and procedure necessary under the procurement law Republic Act 9184 having been observed.”
He said the project is slated to be awarded to OneCommerce International Inc. whom he described as “a favored bidder.”
Vida’s firm was one of the three bidders qualified by the MIAA board for the project which, in its first bidding held last year, required the design, not just procurement and installation of the CCTV surveillance and monitoring system at the NAIA.
Quiambao has asked the Pasay City Regional Trial Court, Branch 119, to issue a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction to prevent Abaya, as chairman of the MIAA board, and other board members from awarding the project via negotiated procurement.
“There are reports that people at the MIAA are now at odds over their favored contractors. Another group favoring another contractor filed an official protest amid reports that the project would go to OneCommerce,” he noted.
Earlier, Quiambao’s client also filed a graft case before the Ombudsman against MIAA General Manager Angel Honrado and members of the MIAA board whom he had accused on being “hell bent” in pursuing negotiated procurement.
He said that such procedure was not allowed by law since there had been only one failed bidding, and not two as the Honrado and the board have been insisting. This is because during the supposed second bidding last year, the terms of reference (TOR) was substantially altered by scrapping the requirement for a project design, reportedly to suit the qualifications of a favored bidder.
In his petition filed with the RTC, Quiambao warned that “if the respondents are allowed to further continue with their plan to undertake the CCTV project by Negotiated Procurement, they will render the government bidding laws and rules a big joke and all of the efforts of the petitioner in trying to comply in good faith with all the requirements made by the respondents will amount to nothing. All acts of the respondents will cause untold prejudice to the interests of the government.”
“The implementation and conclusion of the Negotiated Procurement contract will result in the permanent and irrevocable loss of public funds, without the legal requirements and procedure necessary under the procurement law Republic Act 9184 having been observed,” he also noted.
Quiambao also said the “impending award of this project to their alleged favored bidder OneCommerce International Inc. with the maximum bid price of P486 million, done under the guise of negotiated bidding setting aside stringent legal bidding requirements, will confirm the petitioner’s allegations in their administrative and criminal complaints that the culture of ‘pabaon’ before the co-terminus officials end their term of office is at play.”
