THE Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is ready to make public its report on the laptop deal entered into by the Department of Education with the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management, which the Commission on Audit said was irregular.
In a chance interview yesterday, Sen. Francis Tolentino, who chairs the panel, said the committee report needs just one more signature before he can release the findings.
“The hearings culminated as you are aware of. In fact, I have the 197-page report, 197 pages. All of these but I could not release that today (Wednesday) because I still lack one signature. I could not reveal the names of the signatories,” Tolentino said.
“So, just one more signature, which I failed to secure yesterday (Tuesday) because I had to leave for another engagement. But I have here 197 pages,” he added.
He described the committee report as “very exhaustive, very detailed.”
Tolentino said once the senators’ signatures are complete, he will release the findings.
“This is a collegial recommendation so that’s about it,” he added.
He said most of the senators who have signed the committee report “will interpellate” once he brings the report to the plenary.
Pressed to at least give an overview of the report, Tolentino said: “Let us just wait but as promised, like I said, it will be completed.”
He said copies of the report have been sent to the e-mails of senators.
The SBRC conducted five hearings on the “pricey but outdated laptops” worth P2.4 billion that the PS-DBM purchased on behalf of DepEd.
At the end of the hearing, Tolentino said he got hold of documents showing the laptops had a mark-up of 50 percent as compared to similar laptops that can be bought in computer stores.
Tolentino said the price of the Dell Latitude 3420 BTX laptop from China is around P27,000 per unit, way low compared to the laptops delivered to the DepEd that costs P58,300 per unit.
Job Aguirre, supervising auditor of the DepEd Audit Group, said anything purchased by the government which is 10 percent higher than its market value is considered “pricey” or overpriced.
“Per COA Circular 2012-003 dated October 19, 2012, anything that is in excess by 10 percent of the prevailing and current market price is considered excessive,” Aguirre added.
He said in May 2021, the same month the DepEd approved the purchase of the “pricey” laptops, the DepEd conducted a bidding for a mid-range laptop with a unit price of P45,531.20.
“Through PS-DBM’s procurement, the price of the mid-range laptops is lower while the specs thereof are higher than the laptop purchased by the Department (of Education) during the same period,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre said another reason the COA had to declare the laptops were overpriced was when the DepEd tapped the PS-DBM anew to procure “brand new laptops with faster Intel Core i5 processor 8th generation” with a unit price of P32,500.
He said the same Dell laptops delivered by the joint venture were priced between P22,490 to P25,000 each at a local computer shop.
Aside from the laptops being overpriced, Aguirre said they have also received negative feedback on the laptop computers, including slow processors, and they have not met DepEd requirements.
“The Audit Team recommended that a Fraud Audit be conducted on the complaint emailed by an Alternative Learning System teacher to the Presidential Complaint Center, Office of the President on the same issue,” he said.
He added that out of the 2,378 units allocated for the DepEd Central Office, 1,678 are still undistributed and are stocked at its Asset Management Division as of August 17, 2022.
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