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(Part 2 of 2)
 Corruption-free? DepEd officials in Taguig City deny any irregularities in the bidding processes for school building projects, but it is not known yet whether somebody from the DepEd Central Office is looking deeper into it. JES AZNAR (www.jesaznar.com) Claims that some senior officials at the Department of Education (DepEd) in Taguig City have been conspiring to defraud the public purse by fixing bidding contracts for new school buildings are being flatly denied by top officials there who say their colleague who complained of corruption is actually the one guilty of extorting “huge” sums of money from contractors while she served secretariat member of the division office’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).
In a six-page comment addressed to the DepEd Central Office and dated April 18, the Division Office in Taguig City insisted there were no irregularities in the procurement process. The comment written by Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Superintendent Dr. Meleda Polita maintained that the division’s accuser was actually the one responsible for corruption.
The comment was written at the request of the DepEd Central Office which demanded a response to the complaint which the informant filed with them on March 14. The informant has worked as an administrative clerk at the office of the OIC Superintendent and at the same time as a secretariat member of the BAC at the DepEd Division Office in Taguig City.
The aide turned “whistleblower” met with the Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project (PPTRP) in June alleging serious and serial corruption in the department she had been working in for the past decade. She claimed that senior officers were working in collusion to execute and award contracts in favor of small construction firms which she says were actually part of the same single and influential construction firm. She also admitted to being a junior member of the group that illegally profited from the scam.
In return for working to fix the contracts in their favor, the contractors were said to have paid “back” two per cent of the total cost of the project to the officials involved.
The claims and counter-claims have found their way onto different accounts created on Facebook seemingly to promote differing accounts of the story first published by PPTRP last week.
PPTRP has tried calling twice the divisional office of DepEd in Taguig City to speak to senior officials and to those mentioned in the allegations made. It has also written to the department through an email address given by the division staff on the request of PPTRP for comments on the claims made by the “informant” who was subsequently moved assignments by her superiors.
In her written comment to the DepEd Central Office, the OIC Superintendent denied the informant’s allegations and maintained they were motivated by a decision to transfer her to offices because of her record of tardiness.
“In an effort to earn sympathy, she filed her cases ahead of our Division and projected herself to be a victim, or perhaps, a hero-whistleblower,” said Polita in her comment addressed to DepEd Undersecretary Alberto Muyot. The informant provided PPTRP a photocopy of the said comment.
“She would like to make it appear that her transfer was to cover up anomalies in the procurement activities of the Division. She also claims that the reassignment was unjustified, indiscriminate, will cause her financial dislocation,” Polita said in her comment.
Frequently late for work
Contrary to the informant’s claim that she began to attract the displeasure of her bosses when the favored contractor suggested she was in line to get a bigger share of the “kickback” from school construction projects, the OIC Superintendent wrote of the informant’s alleged excessive tardiness, which reportedly compelled the division to transfer the complainant first to the cashier’s office within the Division Office and subsequently to the Taguig National High School in March of this year.
Between March 2010 and February 2011, it is alleged the informant was late for work no fewer than 177 times. DepEd Order No. 49, Series of 2006 (Revised Rules of Procedure of the Department of Education in Administrative Cases) says that frequent tardiness in reporting for duty is punishable by six months and one day and one year suspension for the first offense, and by dismissal by the second offense.
In the interview with PPTRP in early June, the informant admitted that she was late several times -- but maintained she offset these by extending work beyond office hours in the evening.
The OIC Superintendent said the re-assignment from her office to the cashier’s office on February 23, 2011 was “not welcomed” by the subject. “(She) did not take it positively. She texted (me) on that same day threatening to expose matters about me – a threat which really means nothing to me. Stooping down to her level and dignifying her malicious remarks is something that I would not do. I have absolutely nothing to hide. My conscience is clear. I simply disregarded her misplaced threats.”
Meeting contractors
The OIC Superintendent said that by the time she decided to transfer the informant on March 1 to Taguig National High School “so that she could improve on a different working environment,” her office had started receiving anonymous letters and complaints pertaining to alleged anomalies in the bidding and procurement processes.
The complaints focused on postings and publications of invitations to bid – “a task reposed upon (the informant) as a member of the BAC secretariat then,” she said.
“We also discovered that (the informant) – on her own – was meeting with contractors or suppliers who are interested in the biddings in the Division, even long before the undersigned assumed her position as the Officer-in-Charge.
“She has been extorting money from contractors and suppliers – threatening them that they will be exposed and blacklisted as bidders should they refuse to accede. [The informant] – again, on her own – would post notices in the PhilGEPS website, print the webpage showing such postings, and thereafter delete the web-postings immediately. She kept printouts to mislead the BAC into thinking that there is compliance with the required posting.”
But speaking to PPTRP earlier, the informant insisted it was her superiors who instructed her to do this.
On March 11, the OIC Superintendent officially relieved the informant of her duty as BAC member and stripped of her authority to access the division’s Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) account, requiring her to turn over all documents pertaining to BAC.
The OIC Superintendent denied ordering the posting of flyers accusing the informant of illegal extortion in different parts of the Division Office on the night of March 8, supposedly the informant’s last day there.
Winning contractor
PPTRP spoke with a representative of the winning contractor in an attempt to check on the allegations made. In a phone conversation on June 27, the son of the owner denied having any knowledge about the claims made and asked the author to verify reports with DepEd Taguig Division officials instead.
PPTRP is not naming the contractor given the allegations have yet to be proven.
And also in response to the informant’s petition to stay in her post, the DepEd National Capital Region has determined that the OIC Superintendent has the discretion to transfer employees and also has the necessary powers as “the disciplining authority.”
Separately, the DepEd Central Office is looking into the merits of the complaint filed along with the OIC Superintendent’s response of April 18.
It is not yet known whether the alleged modus operandi of rigging bidding processes within the division has or is being examined. Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project
(The author is the project manager of the Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project.)
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What's wrong with these photos (apart from the blocked out bits)? 
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